# Pointers in Go

> Learn how pointers work in Go, using & to get a variable memory address and * to read its value, so you can change the original inside a function.

Author: [Flavio Copes](https://flaviocopes.com/about/) | Published: 2022-09-20 | Topics: [Go](https://flaviocopes.com/tags/go/) | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/golang-pointers/

Suppose you have a variable:

```go
age := 20
```

Using `&age` you get the pointer to the variable, its memory address.

When you have the pointer to the variable, you can get the value it points to by using the `*` operator:

```go
age := 20
ageptr = &age
agevalue = *ageptr
```

This is useful when you want to call a function and pass the variable as a parameter. Go by default copies the value of the variable inside the function, so this will not change the value of `age`:

```go
func increment(a int) {
	a = a + 1
}

func main() {
	age := 20
	increment(age)

	//age is still 20
}
```

You can use pointers for this:

```go
func increment(a *int) {
	*a = *a + 1
}

func main() {
	age := 20
	increment(&age)

	//age is now 21
}
```