Array pointer and pointer array in C

Question

What is the difference between an array pointer and a pointer array in C?

This is probably of use to you Ksindev. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1641957/is-array-name-a-pointer-in-c — Randy Howard, Mar 28 '13 at 08:54
Without a code example your question is a little ambiguous. Are you asking about the difference between "a pointer to an array" and "an array of pointers"? — CB Bailey, Mar 28 '13 at 08:54
If you figure out what each of those are, the difference will follow. — Jim Balter, Mar 28 '13 at 08:58
It's like the difference between five people in one car and one person in five cars. (One is distinctly more common than the other.) — Kerrek SB, Mar 28 '13 at 09:04

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 28 '13 at 08:51

2

Array pointer points to array, and pointer array is array of pointer, that may point to somewhere.

int array[10]; // `array` is an array pointer

int* pointers_array[10];

answered Mar 28 '13 at 08:51

Alex

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`array` isn't an array pointer, it's the name of an array. If you do `&array` you get a pointer to an array, not a pointer to a pointer. – CB Bailey Mar 28 '13 at 09:37

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 28 '13 at 09:10

An array pointer is a pointer referring to an array. You could access items using pointer arithmetic, and in the opposite direction you could use pointer to access items in an array manner.

 int array [20];
 int a = *(array + 10);
 int b = array[10];

 int *p;
 p = array;

 int c = *(p + 10);
 int d = p[10];

all approaches will work, a,b,c,d will get to same value. However, use the different approaches with care. The difference between array and p is

 p ++; // allowed
 array ++; // fail

An array of pointer just mean your array items are pointers (to what type however).

 char* parray[20];

This array holds 20 pointers to "char" or depending of interpretation to "strings"

So parray is the array pointer of an array of char pointers

Array pointer and pointer array in C

2 Answers2