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Pointers to Structs
As you know, when you have a struct, you can access the fields with the dot (.) operator:
coordinate_t point = {10, 20, 30};
printf("X: %d\n", point.x); // X: 10
However, when you're working with a pointer to a struct, you need to use the arrow (->) operator:
coordinate_t point = {10, 20, 30};
coordinate_t *ptrToPoint = &point;
printf("X: %d\n", ptrToPoint->x); // X: 10
It effectively dereferences the pointer and accesses the field in one step. To be fair, you can also use the dereference and dot operator (* and .) to achieve the same result (it's just more verbose and less common):
coordinate_t point = {10, 20, 30};
coordinate_t *ptrToPoint = &point;
printf("X: %d\n", (*ptrToPoint).x); // X: 10
Order of Operations
The . operator has a higher precedence than the * operator, so parentheses are necessary when using * to dereference a pointer before accessing a member... which is another reason why the arrow operator is so much more common.