C pointer to array/array of pointers disambiguation

c arrays pointers variable-declaration
George picture George · May 13, 2009 · Viewed 388.2k times · Source

What is the difference between the following declarations:

int* arr1[8];
int (*arr2)[8];
int *(arr3[8]);

What is the general rule for understanding more complex declarations?

Answer

Mehrdad Afshari picture Mehrdad Afshari · May 13, 2009 
int* arr[8]; // An array of int pointers.
int (*arr)[8]; // A pointer to an array of integers

The third one is same as the first.

The general rule is operator precedence. It can get even much more complex as function pointers come into the picture.

Related questions

How to find the 'sizeof' (a pointer pointing to an array)?

First off, here is some code: int main() { int days[] = {1,2,3,4,5}; int *ptr = days; printf("%u\n", sizeof(days)); printf("%u\n", sizeof(ptr)); return 0; } Is there a way to find out the size of the array that ptr is pointing …

Read More
What is the difference between char array and char pointer in C?

I am trying to understand pointers in C but I am currently confused with the following: char *p = "hello" This is a char pointer pointing at the character array, starting at h. char p[] = "hello" This is an array that …

Read More
Returning an array using C

I am relatively new to C and I need some help with methods dealing with arrays. Coming from Java programming, I am used to being able to say int [] method()in order to return an array. However, I have found …

Read More