My friend and I are arguing over this one.
char **array[2][2];
Is the size that this takes up in memory 8 + 2*2*8 — 8 for the pointer to the array of pointers and then 32 for the array of pointers?
Or is it just 8 because we are declaring a pointer to an array of pointers. This declarations doesn't have to allocate space for the array of pointers, just the pointer?
As cdecl could have told you (with a little fiddling), your declaration
char ** array[2][2];
declares array as an array of two arrays of two pointers to pointers to char. That means a total of four elements of type char ** (and nothing else). C does not specify how large pointers are, nor even that pointers to different types have the same size, but it is common on 64-bit implementations for all pointers to be 8 bytes wide. On such an implementation, the size of the declared object is 2 * 2 * 8 == 32 bytes. There is no extra pointer.
If you wanted a pointer to a 2 x 2 array of char *, that would be different:
char * (*array)[2][2];
... and the size of that is indeed the size of one pointer. No storage is reserved in that case for the pointed-to 2D array.
The compiler allocates your whole array (32 bytes). You can investigate these questions with sizeof():
#include <stdio.h>
char ** array[2][2];
int main() {
printf("size = %zu\n", sizeof(array));
printf("size[0] = %zu\n", sizeof(array[0]));
printf("size[0][0] = %zu\n", sizeof(array[0][0]));
return 0;
}
On x86_64 architecture returns:
size = 32
size[0] = 16
size[0][0] = 8
Each pointer is 8 bytes long, and your two-dimensional array contains 4 total.
Related
This question already has answers here:
How to find the size of an array (from a pointer pointing to the first element array)?
(17 answers)
Closed 2 years ago.
See below example in c:
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int arr[] = {1, 2 ,3};
int *ptr = arr;
printf("sizeof arr[] = %d ", sizeof(arr));
printf("sizeof ptr = %d ", sizeof(ptr));
return 0;
}
output: sizeof arr[] = 12 sizeof ptr = 4
Why sizeof on pointer "ptr" outputs 4 and on array variable "arr"(although "arr" is also being a pointer) outputs 12 ?
Operator sizeof returns the size of an object's type. Your array has 3 integers so it is sizeof(int)*3.
A pointer size in bytes is platform-specific and in this case it is 4 bytes = 32 bits.
An array variable has pointer semantics, so when it is passed to a function or used in an assignment such as int *p = arr, it represents the address of its first element, however its type is not simply the type of its elements.
In your snippet the size is inferred by the compiler from the initializer you used, so your array type is int[3] in this case,and not simply int.
size of int is 4 bytes so the size of arr = sizeof(int) * 3 which is 12 as it contains 3 integers.
but ptr is a pointer to an array of integers. With a 32bit all the pointer will be size 4 bytes (32 bits)
Hope it helps
although "arr" is also being a pointer
NO, array is not a pointer.
The sizeof pointer depends on the architecture. It does not depend on what it points to.
The size of array is amount of all element in array. In this case, arr content of 3 integer elements, each element has 4 bytes in your system,
(the size of int may be 2 in other systems). So the size of arr is 3*sizeof(int) = 3*4 = 12.
See What is the size of a pointer?
Very useful for your question How to find the 'sizeof' (a pointer pointing to an array)?
And How do I determine the size of my array in C?
How can I justify the output of the below C program?
#include <stdio.h>
char *c[] = {"Mahesh", "Ganesh", "999", "333"};
char *a;
char **cp[] = {c+3, c+2, c+1, c};
char ***cpp = cp;
int main(void) {
printf("%d %d %d %d ",sizeof(a),sizeof(c),sizeof(cp),sizeof(cpp));
return 0;
}
Prints
4 16 16 4
Why?
Here is the ideone link if you want to fiddle with it.
char *c[] = {"Mahesh", "Ganesh", "999", "333"};
c is an array of char* pointers. The initializer gives it a length of 4 elements, so it's of type char *[4]. The size of that type, and therefore of c, is 4 * sizeof (char*).
char *a;
a is a pointer of type char*.
char **cp[] = {c+3, c+2, c+1, c};
cp is an array of char** pointers. The initializer has 4 elements, so it's of type char **[4]. It size is 4 * sizeof (char**).
char ***cpp = cp;
cpp is a pointer to pointer to pointer to char, or char***. Its size is sizeof (char***).
Your code uses %d to print the size values. This is incorrect -- but it happens to work on your system. Probably int and size_t are the same size. To print a size_t value correctly, use %zu -- or, if the value isn't very large, you can cast it to int and use %d. (The %zu format was introduced in C99; there might still be some implementations that don't support it.)
The particular sizes you get:
sizeof a == 4
sizeof c == 16
sizeof cp == 16
sizeof cpp == 4
are specific to your system. Apparently your system uses 4-byte pointers. Other systems may have pointers of different sizes; 8 bytes is common. Almost all systems use the same size for all pointer types, but that's not guaranteed; it's possible, for example, for char* to be larger than char***. (Some systems might require more information to specify a byte location in memory than a word location.)
(You'll note that I omitted the parentheses on the sizeof expressions. That's legal because sizeof is an operator, not a function; its operand is either an expression (which may or may not be parenthesized) or a type name in parentheses, like sizeof (char*).)
a is an usually pointer, which represents the memory address. On 32-bit operating system, 32bit (4 Byte) unsigned integer is used to represent the address. Therefore, sizeof(a) is 4.
c is an array with 4 element, each element is a pointer, its size is 4*4 = 16
cp is also an array, each element is a pointer (the first *, wich point to another pointer (the second *). The later pointer points to an string in the memory. Therefore its basic element size should represent the size of a pointer. and then sizeof(cp) = 4*4 = 16.
cpp is a pointer's pointer's pointer. It is as well represent the 32bit memory address. therefore its sizeof is also 4.
a is a pointer. cpp is also a pointer just to different type (pointer to pointer to pointer).
Now c is an array. You have 4 elements, each is a pointer so you have 4 * 4 = 16 (it would be different if you would run it on x64).
Similar goes for cp. Try changing type to int and you will see the difference.
So the reason you got 4 16 16 4, is because 'a' is simply a pointer, on its own, which only requires 4 bytes (as a pointer is holding a 32bit address depending on your architecture) and so when you have a **pointer which is == to a *pointer[], your really making an array of pointers, and since you initalized 4 things that created 4 pointers, thus the 4x4 = 16. And for the cpp you may ask "well wouldn't it then be 16 as it was initalized?" and the answer is no, because a ***pointer is its own separate variable and still just a pointer(a pointer to a pointer to a pointer, or a pointer to an array of pointers), and requires only 4bytes of memory.
I have the following code
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
int arr[] = {10,20,30,40};
int* ptr = arr;
printf("%d\n",sizeof(arr));
printf("%d",sizeof(ptr));
return 0;
}
The output is
16
4
size of pointer in C is 4. 'arr' is also a pointer to an integer but its size comes out to be 16, which is product of size of one element and number of elements.
On the other hand if I store the same pointer into another pointer variable then its size becomes 4. This is very confusing. The same thing happens if I try to send arr as an argument to a function and then print the size of arr in that function. How does C handle a pointer to an array?
'arr' is also a pointer to integer
No, it's not. arr is an array. The size of an array is the size of an element times the number of elements. If it were a pointer, it's size would be the same as any other pointer.
How does C handles pointer of array?
C handles pointers to arrays the same way it handles all other pointers. However there are no pointers to arrays in your code, only a pointer to int (ptr).
A pointer is just a memory address, therefore on 32-bit systems it is always 4 bytes. Depending on the environment it is 4 or 8 bytes on 64-bit systems.
There is no real confusion in your example. arr is an array of 4 32-bit integers, therefore 16 bytes. It is 'handled', or 'passed around', as a pointer to the first int, an int*, which is why you can copy it to other variables of that type, either explicitly or as a parameter. At which time there is no longer a relationship to the original array, and it is just a pointer - 4 bytes on your system.
The best way to look at it is that there is an implicit conversion possible from int[] to int*, like there is from char to int.
When you do sizeof(arr) you will get the size of array which is number of elements * size of int.
When you do sizeof(ptr) you will get the size of pointer which is size of int.
This is very confusing. The same thing happens if I try to send arr as an argument to a function and then print the size of arr in that function.
When you send the array like this foo(arr), you are actually sending the base address of arr. And when we pass address of a variable to a function, it will store the address in a pointer. So again if you try to get the size of arr you'll get the size of pointer.
sizeof only works to find the length of the array if you apply it to the original array.
int a[5]; //real array. NOT a pointer
sizeof(a); // :)
However, by the time the array decays into a pointer, sizeof will give the size of the pointer and not of the array.
int a[5];
int * p = a; // assigning address of the array to pointer
sizeof(p); // :(
It will return always 4 bytes on 32-bit system and 8 bytes on 64-bit system!
Arrays decaying into pointers when they are passed to a function and continuing to keep the array length in the type system.
When you pass an array to a function it decays to pointer. So the sizeof function will return the size of int *
So when you pass the array to the function you need to pass the Number of elements also-
void function (size_t sz, int *arr) { ... }
:
{
int x[20];
function (sizeof(x)/sizeof(*x), x);
}
char str[] = " http://www.ibegroup.com/";
char *p = str ;
void Foo ( char str[100]){
}
void *p = malloc( 100 );
What's the sizeof str,p,str,p in the above 4 case in turn?
I've tested it under my machine(which seems to be 64bit) with these results:
25 8 8 8
But don't understand the reason yet.
sizeof(char[]) returns the number of bytes in the string, i.e. strlen()+1 for null-terminated C strings filling the entire array. Arrays don't decay to pointers in sizeof. str is an array, and the string has 25 characters plus a null byte, so sizeof(str) should be 26. Did you add a space to the value?
The size of a pointer is of course always determined just by the machine architecture, so both instances of p are 8 bytes on 64-bit architectures and 4 bytes on 32-bit architectures.
In function arguments, arrays do decay to pointers, so you're getting the same result that you get for a pointer. Therefore, the following definitions are equivalent:
void foo(char s[42]) {};
void foo(char s[100]) {};
void foo(char* s) {};
The first is the sizeof of an built-in array, which is the amount of elements (24 + null on the end of the string).
The second is the sizeof of a pointer which is the native word size of your system, in your case 64 bit or 8 bytes.
The third is the sizeof of a pointer to the first element of an array which has the same size as any other pointer, the native word size of your system. Why a pointer to the first element of an array? Because size information of an array goes lost when passed to a function and it gets implicitly converted to a pointer to the first element instead.
The fourth is the sizeof of a pointer which has the same size as any other pointer.
str is an array of 8-bit characters, including null terminator.
p is a pointer, which is typically the size of the machine's native word size (32 bit or 64 bit).
The size taken up by a pointer stays constant, regardless of the size of the memory to which it points.
EDIT
In c++, arguments that are arrays are passed by reference (which internally is a pointer type), that's why the second instance of str has sizeof 8.
in the cases the size of
char str[] = “ http://www.ibegroup.com/”
is known to be 25 (24+1), because that much memory is actually allocated.
In the case of
void Foo ( char str[100]){
no memory is allocated
I'm having some trouble understanding the difference between these two code segments:
I allocate space for an array of integers dynamically within my code with the following statement
int *arr = calloc(cnt, sizeof(int));
In another function, where I pass in arr, I would like to determine the size (number of elements) in arr.
When I call
int arr_sz = sizeof(arr)/sizeof(int);
it only returns 1, which is just the number of bytes in an int for both arguments I am assuming (4/4)=1.
I just assumed it would be the same as using an array
int arr[8];
int arr_sz = sizeof(arr)/sizeof(int);
which returns the actual number of elements in the array.
If anyone could clear this up, that would be great. Thanks!
int *arr; ----> Pointer
int arr[8]; ----> Array
First up what you got there - int *arr is a pointer, pointing to some bytes of memory location, not an array.
The type of an Array and a Pointer is not the same.
In another function where I pass in arr, I would like to determine the size (number elements) in arr. When I call
int arr_sz = sizeof(arr)/sizeof(int);
it only returns 1, which is just the number of bytes in an int for both arguments I am assuming (4/4)=1. I just assumed it would be the same as using an array
Even if it is assumed to be an Array -- that's because Arrays get decayed into pointers when passed into functions. You need to explicitly pass the array size in functions as a separate argument.
Go through this:
Sizeof an array in the C programming language?
There is a difference between a static array and dynamic memory allocation.
The sizeof operator will not work on dynamic allocations.
AFAIK it works best with stack-based and predefined types.
well, int *arr declares a pointer, a variable which keeps the address of some other variable, and its size is the size of an integer because it's a pointer, it just have to keep the address, not the pointee itself.
int arr[8] declares an array, a collection of integers. sizeof(arr) refers to the size of the entire collection, so 8*sizeof(int).
Often you hear that "array and pointers are the same things". That's not true! They're different things.
Mike,
arr is a pointer and as such, on your system at least, has the same number of bytes as int. Array's are not always the same as pointers to the array type.
sizeof(arr) is the same as sizeof(int*), i.e. the size of a single pointer. You can however calculate arr_sz as ... cnt!
*arr is not the same as arr[8] since it's size is not known in compile time, and sizeof is a function of the compiler. So when your arr is *arr sizeof will return the size of the pointer (sizeof(int *))in bytes, while when your arr is arr[8], the sizeof will return the size of array of 8 integers in bytes (which is sizeof(int) * 8).
When you pass a pointer to array to a function, you must specify its size, because the compiler can't do it for you. Another way is to end the array with null element, and perform a while loop.
If you have int arr1[8] the type of arr1 (as far as the compiler is concerned) is an array ints of size 8.
In the example int * arr2 the type of arr2 is pointer to an integer.
sizeof(arr1) is the size of an int array
sizeof(arr2) is the size of an int pointer (4 bytes on a 32 bit system, 8 bytes on a 64 bit system)
So, the only difference is the type which the compiler thinks that variable is.
You can't use sizeof with memory pointers:
int *arr = calloc(cnt, sizeof(int));
But it's ok to use it with arrays:
int arr[8];