The most important difference between pointers in C and those in C++ is that C++ is a more strongly typed language. This stands out where void* is concerned. C doesn’t let you casually assign a pointer of one type to another, but it does allow you to accomplish this through a void*. Thus,

Because this “feature” of C allows you to quietly treat any type like any other type, it leaves a big hole in the type system. C++ doesn’t allow this; the compiler gives you an error message, and if you really want to treat one type as another, you must make it explicit, both to the compiler and to the reader, using a cast. (Chapter 3 introduced C++’s improved “explicit” casting syntax.)