28. NEAR Pointers

• The Protected-mode programs use NEAR pointers.

• NEAR pointers are stored as double word variables. For example,

      .DATA               ; Begin data segment
          b_array     BYTE    0, 1, 2, 4, 8
          w_array     WORD    1000h, 2000h, 3000h
          ptr_b_arr   DWORD   OFFSET b_array
          ptr_w_arr   DWORD   OFFSET w_array
  
      .CODE               ; Begin code segment
  
          mov esi, ptr_b_arr
          inc esi
          inc esi
          mov al, [esi]   ; AL <- 2
          
          mov esi, ptr_w_arr
          add esi, TYPE w_array
          mov ax, [esi]   ; AX <- 2000h