This question already has answers here:
Is an array name a pointer?
(8 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
If I have:
int a[] = {1,2,3};
int len = sizeof(a) / sizeof(int);
I get 3, and I don't understand why.
They always taught me that an array is a pointer, doesn't store its length, but only the pointer to the first element.
Can someone explain this to me in a better way?
An array decays to a pointer to the first element of the array in most expressions. There are two cases where it does not and hence the outcome is not the same.
int array[5];
int* ptr = array; // Array decays to a pointer, OK.
// Same
int a = array[0];
int a = ptr[0];
// Same
void foo(int*);
foo(array);
foo(ptr);
// Not same
size_t s = sizeof(array); // s is 5*sizeof(int)
size_t s = sizeof(ptr); // s is sizeof(int*)
// Not same
int (*p1)[5] = &array; // p1 is a pointer to "an array of 5 ints"
int **p1 = &ptr; // p1 is a pointer to "an int*"
sizeof a returns the size of the entire array in storage units (bytes). sizeof (int) returns the size of a single integer in storage units. Since a is an array of 3 integers, sizeof a / sizeof (int) gives you 3.
They always taught me that an array that it is a pointer
"They" taught you incorrectly. Unless it is the operand of the sizeof or unary & operators, an array expression will be converted ("decay") to a pointer expression, and the value of the pointer expression will be the address of the first element of the array, but an array object is not a pointer.
When you declare a, what you get in memory looks something like this:
+---+
a:| | a[0]
+---+
| | a[1]
+---+
| | a[2]
+---+
There is no object a that's separate from the array elements; there's no pointer anywhere.
They always taught me that an array that it is a pointer
That's your problem, right there. When you call a function and pass an array as an argument, it gets converted into a pointer to the first element. Otherwise, they're not equivalent. In particular, an array has an address, a type, and a size, whereas a pointer just has an address and a type.
This is a pretty common confusion among people learning C for the first time, and even some textbooks get it wrong.
edit: there are a few other cases where arrays "decay" to pointers, typically when they're used in an expression. See one of the other fine answers for a more-exhaustive treatment.
An array can decay to a pointer, but that does not mean an array is a pointer. See this SO question for details.
sizeof returns the size (in bytes) of the data type of its operand. In this case, the data type is an array of int of length three. But, since an int can be represented in different ways on different platforms, you must divide by the sizeof(int) to get the length.
See here for more details on sizeof.
Related
Is an array's name a pointer in C?
If not, what is the difference between an array's name and a pointer variable?
An array is an array and a pointer is a pointer, but in most cases array names are converted to pointers. A term often used is that they decay to pointers.
Here is an array:
int a[7];
a contains space for seven integers, and you can put a value in one of them with an assignment, like this:
a[3] = 9;
Here is a pointer:
int *p;
p doesn't contain any spaces for integers, but it can point to a space for an integer. We can, for example, set it to point to one of the places in the array a, such as the first one:
p = &a[0];
What can be confusing is that you can also write this:
p = a;
This does not copy the contents of the array a into the pointer p (whatever that would mean). Instead, the array name a is converted to a pointer to its first element. So that assignment does the same as the previous one.
Now you can use p in a similar way to an array:
p[3] = 17;
The reason that this works is that the array dereferencing operator in C, [ ], is defined in terms of pointers. x[y] means: start with the pointer x, step y elements forward after what the pointer points to, and then take whatever is there. Using pointer arithmetic syntax, x[y] can also be written as *(x+y).
For this to work with a normal array, such as our a, the name a in a[3] must first be converted to a pointer (to the first element in a). Then we step 3 elements forward, and take whatever is there. In other words: take the element at position 3 in the array. (Which is the fourth element in the array, since the first one is numbered 0.)
So, in summary, array names in a C program are (in most cases) converted to pointers. One exception is when we use the sizeof operator on an array. If a was converted to a pointer in this context, sizeof a would give the size of a pointer and not of the actual array, which would be rather useless, so in that case a means the array itself.
When an array is used as a value, its name represents the address of the first element.
When an array is not used as a value its name represents the whole array.
int arr[7];
/* arr used as value */
foo(arr);
int x = *(arr + 1); /* same as arr[1] */
/* arr not used as value */
size_t bytes = sizeof arr;
void *q = &arr; /* void pointers are compatible with pointers to any object */
If an expression of array type (such as the array name) appears in a larger expression and it isn't the operand of either the & or sizeof operators, then the type of the array expression is converted from "N-element array of T" to "pointer to T", and the value of the expression is the address of the first element in the array.
In short, the array name is not a pointer, but in most contexts it is treated as though it were a pointer.
Edit
Answering the question in the comment:
If I use sizeof, do i count the size of only the elements of the array? Then the array “head” also takes up space with the information about length and a pointer (and this means that it takes more space, than a normal pointer would)?
When you create an array, the only space that's allocated is the space for the elements themselves; no storage is materialized for a separate pointer or any metadata. Given
char a[10];
what you get in memory is
+---+
a: | | a[0]
+---+
| | a[1]
+---+
| | a[2]
+---+
...
+---+
| | a[9]
+---+
The expression a refers to the entire array, but there's no object a separate from the array elements themselves. Thus, sizeof a gives you the size (in bytes) of the entire array. The expression &a gives you the address of the array, which is the same as the address of the first element. The difference between &a and &a[0] is the type of the result1 - char (*)[10] in the first case and char * in the second.
Where things get weird is when you want to access individual elements - the expression a[i] is defined as the result of *(a + i) - given an address value a, offset i elements (not bytes) from that address and dereference the result.
The problem is that a isn't a pointer or an address - it's the entire array object. Thus, the rule in C that whenever the compiler sees an expression of array type (such as a, which has type char [10]) and that expression isn't the operand of the sizeof or unary & operators, the type of that expression is converted ("decays") to a pointer type (char *), and the value of the expression is the address of the first element of the array. Therefore, the expression a has the same type and value as the expression &a[0] (and by extension, the expression *a has the same type and value as the expression a[0]).
C was derived from an earlier language called B, and in B a was a separate pointer object from the array elements a[0], a[1], etc. Ritchie wanted to keep B's array semantics, but he didn't want to mess with storing the separate pointer object. So he got rid of it. Instead, the compiler will convert array expressions to pointer expressions during translation as necessary.
Remember that I said arrays don't store any metadata about their size. As soon as that array expression "decays" to a pointer, all you have is a pointer to a single element. That element may be the first of a sequence of elements, or it may be a single object. There's no way to know based on the pointer itself.
When you pass an array expression to a function, all the function receives is a pointer to the first element - it has no idea how big the array is (this is why the gets function was such a menace and was eventually removed from the library). For the function to know how many elements the array has, you must either use a sentinel value (such as the 0 terminator in C strings) or you must pass the number of elements as a separate parameter.
Which *may* affect how the address value is interpreted - depends on the machine.
An array declared like this
int a[10];
allocates memory for 10 ints. You can't modify a but you can do pointer arithmetic with a.
A pointer like this allocates memory for just the pointer p:
int *p;
It doesn't allocate any ints. You can modify it:
p = a;
and use array subscripts as you can with a:
p[2] = 5;
a[2] = 5; // same
*(p+2) = 5; // same effect
*(a+2) = 5; // same effect
The array name by itself yields a memory location, so you can treat the array name like a pointer:
int a[7];
a[0] = 1976;
a[1] = 1984;
printf("memory location of a: %p", a);
printf("value at memory location %p is %d", a, *a);
And other nifty stuff you can do to pointer (e.g. adding/substracting an offset), you can also do to an array:
printf("value at memory location %p is %d", a + 1, *(a + 1));
Language-wise, if C didn't expose the array as just some sort of "pointer"(pedantically it's just a memory location. It cannot point to arbitrary location in memory, nor can be controlled by the programmer). We always need to code this:
printf("value at memory location %p is %d", &a[1], a[1]);
I think this example sheds some light on the issue:
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int a[3] = {9, 10, 11};
int **b = &a;
printf("a == &a: %d\n", a == b);
return 0;
}
It compiles fine (with 2 warnings) in gcc 4.9.2, and prints the following:
a == &a: 1
oops :-)
So, the conclusion is no, the array is not a pointer, it is not stored in memory (not even read-only one) as a pointer, even though it looks like it is, since you can obtain its address with the & operator. But - oops - that operator does not work :-)), either way, you've been warned:
p.c: In function ‘main’:
pp.c:6:12: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
int **b = &a;
^
p.c:8:28: warning: comparison of distinct pointer types lacks a cast
printf("a == &a: %d\n", a == b);
C++ refuses any such attempts with errors in compile-time.
Edit:
This is what I meant to demonstrate:
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int a[3] = {9, 10, 11};
void *c = a;
void *b = &a;
void *d = &c;
printf("a == &a: %d\n", a == b);
printf("c == &c: %d\n", c == d);
return 0;
}
Even though c and a "point" to the same memory, you can obtain address of the c pointer, but you cannot obtain the address of the a pointer.
The following example provides a concrete difference between an array name and a pointer. Let say that you want to represent a 1D line with some given maximum dimension, you could do it either with an array or a pointer:
typedef struct {
int length;
int line_as_array[1000];
int* line_as_pointer;
} Line;
Now let's look at the behavior of the following code:
void do_something_with_line(Line line) {
line.line_as_pointer[0] = 0;
line.line_as_array[0] = 0;
}
void main() {
Line my_line;
my_line.length = 20;
my_line.line_as_pointer = (int*) calloc(my_line.length, sizeof(int));
my_line.line_as_pointer[0] = 10;
my_line.line_as_array[0] = 10;
do_something_with_line(my_line);
printf("%d %d\n", my_line.line_as_pointer[0], my_line.line_as_array[0]);
};
This code will output:
0 10
That is because in the function call to do_something_with_line the object was copied so:
The pointer line_as_pointer still contains the same address it was pointing to
The array line_as_array was copied to a new address which does not outlive the scope of the function
So while arrays are not given by values when you directly input them to functions, when you encapsulate them in structs they are given by value (i.e. copied) which outlines here a major difference in behavior compared to the implementation using pointers.
The array name behaves like a pointer and points to the first element of the array. Example:
int a[]={1,2,3};
printf("%p\n",a); //result is similar to 0x7fff6fe40bc0
printf("%p\n",&a[0]); //result is similar to 0x7fff6fe40bc0
Both the print statements will give exactly same output for a machine. In my system it gave:
0x7fff6fe40bc0
This question already has answers here:
Is array name a constant pointer in C++?
(2 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
char arr[] = "Hello";
arr = arr + 1; // error occurs
As far as I know, an expression that has array type is converted to pointer type that points to the initial element of the array. Therefore, I expected arr = arr + 1 (pointer to first element(arr) of the array becomes the pointer to the second element of the array)to work. Why doesn't this work in C?
arr + 1 is indeed a pointer to the second element of the array (i.e. &arr[1]).
However, that does not mean that you can somehow write that pointer value back into arr. You can't do it for at least two reasons.
Firstly, arr is an array of char elements, not a pointer. There's an obvious type mismatch here.
Secondly, being an array, arr a non-modifiable lvalue. You cannot change arr itself, you can only change its elements (this distinction is somewhat hard to grasp, but it is there).
Finally, if we just ignore the deeper intricacies and focus on what formally happens at the top level, due to array type decay your expression is equivalent to
(char *) arr = (char *) arr + 1;
The assignment is impossible since the left-hand side is a result of [implicit] type conversion. In C type conversions always produce rvalues. You cannot assign to rvalues.
In other words, it is not the "pointer arithmetic" that's disallowed here. The pointer arithmetic is fine. It is what you do with the result of that pointer arithmetic that causes the error.
Arrays are non-modifiable lvalues. They can't be the left operand of an assignment operator.
C11-§6.3.2.1:
A modifiable lvalue is an lvalue that
does not have array type, does not have an incomplete type, [...]
§6.5.16/2:
An assignment operator shall have a modifiable lvalue as its left operand.
In the statement
arr = arr + 1;
arr is the left operand of = operator and is of array type. It can't be modified.
So, it's not the pointer arithmetic but the constraint by the language on the assignment operator that is the reason for syntactical error.
Note that in some contexts arrays decay to a pointer to its first element, though pointers and arrays are different types. Arrays are not pointers. It is only the pointer arithmetic and array indexing which are equivalent. For example
char *ptr = &arr[0] + 1 => &(*(arr + 0)) + 1 => &(*arr) + 1 => arr + 1 // * and & nullify each other
This is because arrays are similar to pointers except that they can not be modified. However you can modify a pointer that is pointing to an array. For the above example you can do like this:
char arr[]="Hello";
char *ptr=arr;
ptr=ptr+1;
Initially the pointer ptr will be pointing to the first character of the array i.e. 'H' and after modifying the value it will point to the second character i.e. 'e'. You can also do the following:
char arr[]="Hello";
char *ptr=arr;
ptr=arr+1;
Both produce the same effect which shows that arr+1 is indeed pointer arithmetic. However you can not modify the value of arr because its type is that of a character array and not pointer to a character array.
As far as I know, an expression that has array type is converted to pointer type that points to the inital element of the array.
It is true in most contexts. It is not true in the following contexts:
When using the addressof operator (&arr). The type of &arr is char (*)[6]. It is not char**.
When using the sizeof operator. sizeof(arr) is 6. Had it been a pointer, it would be the size of a pointer (4 or 8 in most common platforms).
When used as the LHS of an assignment operator. A variable of array type is not modifiable.
Therefore, I expected arr = arr + 1 (pointer to first element(arr) of the array becomes the pointer to the second element of the array)to work. Why doens't this work in C?
The RHS of the expression evaluates to a pointer to the second element of arr. However, that line does not work due to (3) above. arr is not a modifiable value. It cannot be used as the LHS of an assignment operator.
char[] is not pointer, while char* is a pointer.
This works, but it is wrong solution:
int main()
{
char *arr = "Hello";
arr = arr + 1; // Wrong!
printf("%s\n", arr); // Output: ello
}
If arr is heap-allocated with malloc you can get memory leak if free memory starting arr+1 not arr.
But you can do something like this:
int main()
{
char arr[] = "Hello";
char *wordFromSecondLetter = &arr[0] + 1;
printf("%s\n", wordFromSecondLetter); // Output: ello
}
Or like this
int main()
{
char arr[] = "Hello";
printf("%s\n", &arr[1]); // Output: ello
}
Because arr is not a pointer but a char array. You can verify this by checking sizeof arr. To get a pointer to char, you should use char *arr = "Hello";.
The biggest difference between a pointer and an array is that you can directly assign a value to a pointer, but you can't do this to an array.
In fact, when you write arr + 1, arr "decays" to the pointer to its first element, that is to say, arr == &arr[0]. So arr + 1 is legal pointer arithmetic, but giving its value to arr, which is an array, is illegal.
The following snippet declares a 2-D array of 4 X 10 using malloc function
/* Declare a pointer to an array that has 10
ints in each row. */
int (*p)[10];
register int i, j;
/* allocate memory to hold a 4 x 10 array */
p = malloc(40*sizeof(int));
But I do not understand how does p become a 2-D array. Initially p is declared to be an array of pointers that point to int. What happens after the call to malloc ? I am unable understand this.
In C, pointers and arrays are not the same, despite looking very similar. Here p is of type "pointer to array of 10 ints". You're using it as a "pointer to array of 4 arrays of 10 ints", which is a single block of memory (the only pointer is the outermost pointer). It's basically a dynamically allocated int[4][10].
The trick to reading these definitions is to realize that they're written the same way you use the item. If you have:
*x[10];
The array subscript is applied first, then the pointer dereference. So it's an array of pointers if you define int *x[10]. If you use parenthesis to override normal precedence, you can get the pointer dereference to happen first, so you have a pointer to an array.
Confusing? It gets worse. In function arguments, the outermost array of a function parameter is converted into a pointer.
int *p[10]; // array of 10 pointer to int
int (*p)[10]; // pointer to array of 10 ints
void foo(int *p[10] /* pointer to pointer to int */);
void foo(int (*p)[10] /* pointer to array of 10 ints */);
Further, arrays are converted to pointers when you use them.
int x[10]; // array of 10 int
sizeof(x); // 10 * sizeof(int)
int *y = x; // implicitly converts to a pointer to &x[0]!
sizeof(y); // sizeof(int *)
This means that you can allocate memory for an array of arrays, then let that implicitly convert to a pointer to an array, which you in turn use as if it were an array of arrays!
Anyway, this is all very confusing so please do not ever use this in production code - at least, not without a clarifying typedef:
typedef int vector[3];
vector *array_of_vectors; // actually a pointer to a vector,
// but you can use it as an aray to a vector if enough
// memory is allocated
The memory, worth 40 ints, is reserved to the pointer p. p points at his memory block. It so happens that p chooses to organize this memory as 10 equal parts, each of which happen to hold 4 ints' worth.
That's if this code is actually correct. My C is very rusty at this point.
First, some background information:
Except when it is the operand of the sizeof, _Alignof, or unary & operators, or is a string literal being used to initialize another array in a declaration, an expression of type "N-element array of T" is converted ("decays") to an expression of type "pointer to T", and its value is the address of the first element in the array. For example, given the array
int a[10];
anytime the expression a appears in the code, its type will be converted from "10-element array of int" to "pointer to int", or int *, except for cases like sizeof a, _Alignof a, and &a. If we have a 2D array of T, such as
int a[10][10];
the expression a will be converted from type "10-element array of 10-element array of int" to "pointer to 10-element array of int", or int (*)[10] (look familiar? that's the type of your pointer p).
If we want to dynamically allocate an N-element array of type T, we write something like
T *p = malloc(N * sizeof *p);
sizeof *p is equivalent to sizeof (T). In this particular case, type T is "10-element array of int", or int [10]. We want to allocate 4 such arrays, so we can write
int (*p)[10];
p = malloc(4 * sizeof *p);
This allocates space for 4 10-element arrays of int, and assigns the result to p. (sizeof *p == sizeof (int [10])).
So how does this become a 2D array?
Remember that the expression a[i] is equivalent to *(a + i); we find the address of the i'th element of type T following a and dereference the result. In this case p[i] gives us the address of the ith 10-element array of int following p. Since we dereference the pointer as part of the subscript operation, the type of the expression p[i] is "10-element array of int". Thus we can subscript this expression again and get p[i][j].
Im quite confused that what is difference between these two initializations:
int (*p)[10];
and
int *p[10]
I know they both can point to 2D array whose element count in row is 10....
The first is a pointer to array, the second is an array of pointers.
To elaborate a bit on the correct answers here already:
The first line:
int (*p)[10];
declares that "p" is a pointer to the memory address of an array with the capacity of 10 ints. It can be read in English as: "integer-pointer 'p' points to 10 sequential ints in memory".
The second line:
int *p[10]
Declares that "p[]" is an array of 10 pointers to integers. This is an array of memory addresses that point to integers. In this case, "p" is a sequence of 10 pointers in memory (which happen to be the memory addresses of other ints).
int (*p)[10];
+------+ +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| p | =========================>|(*p)[0]|(*p)[1]|(*p)[2]|(*p)[3]|(*p)[4]|(*p)[5]|(*p)[6]|(*p)[7]|(*p)[8]|(*p)[9]|
+------+ +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
sizeof p will return sizeof (void *) (4 on 32 bit systems, 8 on 64 bit systems)
sizeof *p will return 10*sizeof (int) (40 on most systems)
int *p[10]; is the same as int* (p[10]);
p
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| p[0] | p[1] | p[2] | p[3] | p[4] | p[5] | p[6] | p[7] | p[8] | p[9] |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
sizeof p will return 10*sizeof (void *) (40 on 32 bit systems, 80 on 64 bit systems)
sizeof *p will return sizeof (int *) (4 on 32 bit systems, 8 on 64 bit systems)
In your first example, p is pointer to array of 10 integers. In the second example, p is an array of 10 pointers.
You can dynamically allocate an object of type "pointer to array of ten int" as follows.
int (**ptr)[10] = new (int (*)[10]);
Note, no space for any ints is allocated; only the pointer itself.
You can allocate an array of 10 ints as follows:
int *ptr = new int[10];
What you can't do (without explicit casting) is assign a pointer to a dynamically allocated array of 10 int to a pointer of type int (*)[10]. Whenever you allocate an array via new, even if you use a typedef, the type of the new expression is a pointer to the first element of the array; the size of the array is not retained in the type of the new expression.
This is because new[] expressions can allocate arrays where the size of the array is chosen at runtime so would not always be possible (or even desirable) to encode the array size into the type of the new expression.
As has been suggested, you can dynamically allocate an array of one array of 10 int. The size of the first array is lost from the type information and what you get is a pointer to the first element of the array (of size 1) of the arrays of four int.
int (*p)[10] = new int[1][10];
Even though it is an array of just 1 (arrays of 10 int), you still need to use delete[] to deallocate p.
delete[] p;
Of course one should never actually be a position to need to call delete manually.
In the first definition (not initialization), p is a pointer; in the second, p is an array of 10 pointers.
As others have pointed out, int (*p)[10] declares p as a pointer to a 10-element array of int, whereas int *p[10] declares p as a 10-element array of pointer to int.
In C, declarations are built around the types of expressions, not objects. The idea is that the form of the declaration should match the form of the expression as it's used in the code.
Suppose that p is an array of pointers to int (the second case). To access a particular integer value, you'd subscript into the array and dereference the result, as in
x = *p[i];
Postfix operators like [] and () have higher precedence than unary operators like *, so the above statement is parsed as *(p[i]) (IOW, the * is applied to the expression p[i]).
The type of the expression *p[i] is int, so the corresponding declaration of p is int *p[10];.
Now let's suppose that p is a pointer to an array of int (the first case). To access a particular integer value, you'd dereference the pointer and then subscript the result, as in
x = (*p)[i];
Again, because [] has higher precedence than *, we need to use parentheses to explicitly associate the * with just p, not p[i]. The type of the expression (*p)[i] is int, so the declaration of p is int (*p)[10];.
I'm messing around with multidimensional arrays and pointers. I've been looking at a program that prints out the contents of, and addresses of, a simple array. Here's my array declaration:
int zippo[4][2] = { {2,4},
{6,8},
{1,3},
{5,7} };
My current understanding is that zippo is a pointer, and it can hold the address of a couple of other pointers. By default, zippo holds the address of pointer zippo[0], and it can also hold the addresses of pointers zippo[1], zippo[2], and zippo[3].
Now, take the following statement:
printf("zippo[0] = %p\n", zippo[0]);
printf(" *zippo = %p\n", *zippo);
printf(" zippo = %p\n", zippo);
On my machine, that gives the following output:
zippo[0] = 0x7fff170e2230
*zippo = 0x7fff170e2230
zippo = 0x7fff170e2230
I perfectly understand why zippo[0] and *zippo have the same value. They're both pointers, and they both store the address (by default) of the integer 2, or zippo[0][0]. But what is up with zippo also sharing the same memory address? Shouldn't zippo be storing the address of the pointer zippo[0]? Whaaaat?
When an array expression appears in most contexts, its type is implicitly converted from "N-element array of T" to "pointer to T", and its value is set to point to the first element in the array. The exceptions to this rule are when the array expression is an operand of either the sizeof or address-of (&) operators, or when the array is a string literal being used as an initializer in a declaration.
Thus, the expression zippo "decays" from type int [4][2] (4-element array of 2-element arrays of int) to int (*)[2] (pointer to 2-element array of int). Similarly, the type of zippo[0] is int [2], which is implicitly converted to int *.
Given the declaration int zippo[4][2], the following table shows the types of various array expressions involving zippo and any implicit conversions:
Expression Type Implicitly converted to Equivalent expression
---------- ---- ----------------------- ---------------------
zippo int [4][2] int (*)[2]
&zippo int (*)[4][2]
*zippo int [2] int * zippo[0]
zippo[i] int [2] int *
&zippo[i] int (*)[2]
*zippo[i] int zippo[i][0]
zippo[i][j] int
&zippo[i][j] int *
*zippo[i][j] invalid
Note that zippo, &zippo, *zippo, zippo[0], &zippo[0], and &zippo[0][0] all have the same value; they all point to the base of the array (the address of the array is the same as the address of the first element of the array). The types of the various expressions all differ, though.
When you declare a multidimensional array, the compiler treats it as a single dimensional array. Multidimensional arrays are just an abstraction to make our life easier. You have a misunderstanding: This isn't one array pointing to 4 arrays, its always just a single contigous block of memory.
In your case, doing:
int zippo[4][2]
Is really the same as doing
int zippo[8]
With the math required for the 2D addressing handled for you by the compiler.
For details, see this tutorial on Arrays in C++.
This is very different than doing:
int** zippo
or
int* zippo[4]
In this case, you're making an array of four pointers, which could be allocated to other arrays.
zippo is not a pointer. It's an array of array values. zippo, and zippo[i] for i in 0..4 can "decay" to a pointer in certain cases (particularly, in value contexts). Try printing sizeof zippo for an example of the use of zippo in a non-value context. In this case, sizeof will report the size of the array, not the size of a pointer.
The name of an array, in value contexts, decays to a pointer to its first element. So, in value context, zippo is the same as &zippo[0], and thus has the type "pointer to an array [2] of int"; *zippo, in value context is the same as &zippo[0][0], i.e., "pointer to int". They have the same value, but different types.
I recommend reading Arrays and Pointers for answering your second question. The pointers have the same "value", but point to different amounts of space. Try printing zippo+1 and *zippo+1 to see that more clearly:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
int zippo[4][2] = { {2,4}, {6,8}, {1,3}, {5,7} };
printf("%lu\n", (unsigned long) (sizeof zippo));
printf("%p\n", (void *)(zippo+1));
printf("%p\n", (void *)(*zippo+1));
return 0;
}
For my run, it prints:
32
0xbffede7c
0xbffede78
Telling me that sizeof(int) on my machine is 4, and that the second and the third pointers are not equal in value (as expected).
Also, "%p" format specifier needs void * in *printf() functions, so you should cast your pointers to void * in your printf() calls (printf() is a variadic function, so the compiler can't do the automatic conversion for you here).
Edit: When I say an array "decays" to a pointer, I mean that the name of an array in value context is equivalent to a pointer. Thus, if I have T pt[100]; for some type T, then the name pt is of type T * in value contexts. For sizeof and unary & operators, the name pt doesn't reduce to a pointer. But you can do T *p = pt;—this is perfectly valid because in this context, pt is of type T *.
Note that this "decaying" happens only once. So, let's say we have:
int zippo[4][2] = { {2,4}, {6,8}, {1,3}, {5,7} };
Then, zippo in value context decays to a pointer of type: pointer to array[2] of int. In code:
int (*p1)[2] = zippo;
is valid, whereas
int **p2 = zippo;
will trigger an "incompatible pointer assignment" warning.
With zippo defined as above,
int (*p0)[4][2] = &zippo;
int (*p1)[2] = zippo;
int *p2 = zippo[0];
are all valid. They should print the same value when printed using printf("%p\n", (void *)name);, but the pointers are different in that they point to the whole matrix, a row, and a single integer respectively.
The important thing here is that int zippy[4][2] is not the same type of object as int **zippo.
Just like int zippi[5], zippy is the address of a block of memory. But the compiler knows that you want to address the eight memory location starting at zippy with a two dimensional syntax, but want to address the five memory location starting at zippi with a one dimensional syntax.
zippo is a different thing entirely. It holds the address of a a block of memory big enough to contain two pointer, and if you make them point at some arrays of integers, you can dereference them with the two dimensional array access syntax.
Very well explained by Reed, I shall add few more points to make it simpler, when we refer to zippo or zippo[0] or zippo[0][0], we are still referring to the same base address of the array zippo. The reason being arrays are always contiguous block of memory and multidimensional arrays are multiple single dimension arrays continuously placed.
When you have to increment by each row, you need a pointer int *p = &zippo[0][0], and doing p++ increments the pointer by every row.
In your example id its a 4 X 2 array, on doing p++ its, pointer currently points to second set of 4 elements.