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.
(11 May 1995)