C - Arrays and Pointers

Introduction

Arrays and pointers are closely related and can sometimes be used interchangeably.

Array name is the array pointer.

To read an string of char array:

char multiple[10];
scanf_s("%s", multiple, sizeof(multiple));

Here we didn't use the & operator.

We're using the array name just like a pointer.

Array name without an index value refers to the address of the first element in the array.

You can't change the address referenced by an array name.

The following code shows that an array name by itself refers to an address:

Demo

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
  char multiple[] = "My string";

  char *p = &multiple[0];
  printf("The address of the first array element  : %p\n", p);

  p = multiple;/*www . j a  v a  2s . co m*/
  printf("The address obtained from the array name: %p\n", multiple);
  return 0;
}

Result

The expression &multiple[0] produces the same value as the expression multiple.

multiple evaluates to the address of the first byte of the array, and &multiple[0] evaluates to the first byte of the first element of the array.

Related Topics

• Access array element by pointer
• Incrementing a pointer to an array of long type integers
• Two-dimensional arrays and pointers
• Use pointer notation to get to the values within a two-dimensional array
• Getting values in a two-dimensional array with pointer and for loop
• Using pointer to access multidimensional arrays
• Pointer math in array
• Pointers for array notation
• Building an array of pointers
• Dereference array of pointers
• Pointer Notation and Array Notation

Exercise

• Write program to display address of each element in the array along with its value
• Write program to output array element value using point
• Write program to fill char array using pointer
• Write program to Output each character in array of string using pointer and putchar() function.

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