Passing multidimensional arrays as function arguments in C

Question

In C can I pass a multidimensional array to a function as a single argument when I don't know what the dimensions of the array are going to be?

Besides, my multidimensional array may contain types other than strings.

Answer 1

Pass an explicit pointer to the first element with the array dimensions as separate parameters. For example, to handle arbitrarily sized 2-d arrays of int:

void func_2d(int *p, size_t M, size_t N)
{
  size_t i, j;
  ...
  p[i*N+j] = ...;
}

which would be called as

...
int arr1[10][20];
int arr2[5][80];
...
func_2d(&arr1[0][0], 10, 20);
func_2d(&arr2[0][0], 5, 80);

Same principle applies for higher-dimension arrays:

func_3d(int *p, size_t X, size_t Y, size_t Z)
{
  size_t i, j, k;
  ...
  p[i*Y*Z+j*Z+k] = ...;
  ...
}
...
arr2[10][20][30];
...
func_3d(&arr[0][0][0], 10, 20, 30);