What does "int *[5]" indicate in c?

Question

I was going through study materials from my previous year at University, and I saw a question like:

What is the difference between int *a and int a[5] and int *[5]. What does the last one indicate?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27811025/what-is-the-meaning-of-int-pt5-in-c check the last answer of the link — Ankur Jyoti Phukan, Dec 27 '15 at 10:35
Questions like this are really not welcome here, because they practically shout: “I didn’t do any research of my own! Spoon-feed me the answers!” Please read the help files about how to ask good questions. — Tom Zych, Dec 27 '15 at 10:40

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 27 '15 at 12:00

0

the int *a[5] declares an array of pointers to int.

the easiest was to determine the specifics of a variable declaration is read it from right to left.

answered Dec 27 '15 at 12:00

user3629249

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 27 '15 at 12:42

In a nutshell:

int *a - creates a pointer to an int. This should contain the memory address of another int.

Example values of *a are 0x00001, 0x000057, etc.

int a[5] - creates an array that contains five int elements with each element containing an int values.

Here's a visualization of the possible values of each element in the array:

-------------------------
| Array element | Value |
-------------------------
| a[0]          |     1 |
| a[1]          |     2 |
| a[2]          |     3 |
| a[3]          |     4 |
| a[4]          |     5 |
-------------------------

int *a[5] - creates an array that contains five pointer to an int elements which each element containing the memory address of another int.

Here's a visualization of the possible values of each element in the pointer array:

-------------------------
| Array element | Value |
-------------------------
| a[0]          | 0x000 |
| a[1]          | 0x001 |
| a[2]          | 0x002 |
| a[3]          | 0x003 |
| a[4]          | 0x004 |
-------------------------

What does "int *[5]" indicate in c?

2 Answers2