Using pointer to char array values in that array can be accessed

Question

I created ptr as pointer to an array of 5 chars   char   ptr  5     assigned it the address of a char array   char arr 5      a   b   c   d   e    ptr    amp arr    using pointer ptr can I access the char values in this array   printf   nvalue  c     ptr 0      It does not print the value    In my understanding ptr will contain the base address of array but it actually point to the memory required for the complete array  i e 5 chars   Thus when ptr is incremented it moves ahead by sizeof char  5 bytes  So is it not possible to access values of the array using this pointer to array

User · Accepted Answer

When you want to access an element  you have to first dereference your pointer  and then index the element you want  which is also dereferncing   i e  you need to do   printf   nvalue  c     ptr  0      which is the same as     ptr  0   Note that working with pointer to arrays are not very common in C  instead  one just use a pointer to the first element in an array  and either deal with the length as a separate element  or place a senitel value at the end of the array  so one can learn when the array ends  e g   char arr 5      a   b   c   d   e  0    char  ptr   arr    same as char  ptr    amp arr 0   printf   nvalue  c   ptr 0

User · Answer

Use of pointer before character array  Normally  Character array is used to store single elements in it i e 1 byte each  eg   char a     a   b   c      we can t store multiple value in it   by using pointer before the character array we can store the multi dimensional array elements in the array  i e   char  a     one   two   three    printf   s n s n s  a 0  a 1  a 2

User · Answer

Most people responding don t even seem to know what an array pointer is     The problem is that you do pointer arithmetics with an array pointer  ptr   1 will mean  jump 5 bytes ahead since ptr points at a 5 byte array    Do like this instead    include  lt stdio h gt   int main       char   ptr  5     char arr 5      a   b   c   d   e      int i     ptr    amp arr    for i 0  i lt 5  i            printf   nvalue   c     ptr  i            Take the contents of what the array pointer points at and you get an array  So they work just like any pointer in C

User · Answer

Your should create ptr as follows   char  ptr    You have created ptr as an array of pointers to chars  The above creates a single pointer to a char   Edit  complete code should be   char  ptr  char arr 5      a   b   c   d   e    ptr   arr  printf   nvalue  c     ptr 0

[c] Using pointer to char array, values in that array can be accessed?

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