pointers to arrays

[Kenneth R. Ballou]

In article <273 at bms-at.UUCP> stuart at bms-at.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) writes:
>I am still confused about several things concerning pointers to arrays.
>
>There does seem to be such a type, even in K & R.
>
>1) How does one get such an animal?  The only methods I can figure are
>
>	a) a cast: ( type (*)[] ) array_of_type
Also, you could have:
	int (* foo) [10];

	foo = (int (*) [10]) malloc (4 * sizeof (int [10]))

Then, * foo, * (foo + 1), * (foo + 2), and * (foo + 3) would each have type
"array of 10 ints."

>	b) a function returning such a type (but the return must use a cast!)

No, this function could now say  return foo + 2;

>3) It seems to me that any distinction between a pointer to an array
>   and a pointer to its first element is purely semantic.

Nope, it affects address arithmetic.

--------
Kenneth R. Ballou		...!ucbvax!brahms!ballou
Department of Mathematics	ballou at brahms.berkeley.edu
University of California
Berkeley, California  94720