By contract, chaining the 'Address of' operator & with the 'Indirection' operator * results in a return to the
initial value. Thus, such combinations are confusing at best, and bugs at worst.
Noncompliant code example
int *ptr = ...;
int *result1 = &(*ptr); //Noncompliant
int *result2 = &*ptr; //Noncompliant
int value = 4;
int result3 = *(&value); //Noncompliant
int result4 = *&value; //Noncompliant
Compliant solution
int *ptr = ...;
int *result1 = ptr;
int *result2 = ptr;
int value = 4;
int result3 = value;
int result4 = value;
Exceptions
No issue is raised when the * or & operators are overloaded or when both operators are not located in the same piece
of code (one being generated by a macro expansion and the other one located in the main source code for instance).
