title: What exactly is meant by "de-referencing a NULL pointer"?
body: <p>I am a complete novice to C, and during my university work I've come across comments in code that often refer to de-referencing a NULL pointer.  I do have a background in C#, I've been getting by that this might be similar to a &quot;NullReferenceException&quot; that you get in .Net, but now I am having serious doubts.</p>
  <p>Can someone please explain to me in layman's terms exactly what this is and why it is bad?</p>