Keep in mind what you want to do with the pointer.

*

*

Do you want to assign itto another pointer, or to *pass itas a pointer argument?
Do you want to dereference it (follow it) and work with
the object that it points to?

Review the examples pointers-1.c and its associated output pointers- 1.log, and pointers-2.c and its associated output pointers-2.log. See class handout and online notes.

Arrays and Pointers(continued)

*C really does not have arrays. C has contiguous regions of identical objects with a base pointer.Array notation is simply a form of pointer shorthand.

Given the two declarations:

float a[10];
float* pa;

The following pairs of notation are equivalent

&a[0]
a[i]
*(pa+i)

a
*(a+i) pa[i]

the former is preferred the former is preferred the former is preferred

January 21, 1999

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JH/TM