what *p1 ^= *p2; does in c

Question

In C what does this statement do?

*p1 ^= *p2;

p1 and p2 are char pointers pointing to two different address of a char

Answer 1

It should probably be easier to understand if you see it this way instead:

char c1 = *p1;
char c2 = *p2;

c1 = c1 ^ c2;

*p1 = c1;

That's basically what the code you show is doing.

This of course relies on you knowing how exclusive or actually works, and know about pointer dereferencing too.