1. To go through multiple levels of indirection, as in traversing a linked list or graph structure. Used especially by programmers in C, where explicit pointers are a very common data type.

See dangling pointer and snap.

2. (Cambridge) "pointer chase" or "pointer hunt": The process of going through a core dump, interactively or on a large piece of paper printed with hex runes, following dynamic data-structures. Used only in debugging.

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