Dereferencing a function returning a pointer to a structure in C

Question

I've recently come across the following behaviour in C code for the first time:

struct tm brokenDownTime = *gmtime( &myTime );

gmtime returns a pointer to a tm structure and I can see that it's being dereferenced, am I right in assuming that the * is causing the structure to be copied?

Many thanks

Answer 1

Almost correct, the deference itself doesn't cause the copy but the assignment does: all the structure elements are shallow copied.