CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++pointersmultidimensional-array
Samuel
Samuel

Reputation: 650

Dereferencing a pointer gives an address

i have this code snippets 

    const int col= 5;const int row= 5;

    int a[row][col] = {0};

    int (*p)[col] ;

    p = a;

And these statements print the same address 

    cout <<p;
    cout << endl;
    cout << *p;

in my opinion since p points to an array of 5 ints, dereferencing it
should give the first value which doesn't seem to be the case.
help!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 381

Answers (1)

Mike Seymour
Mike Seymour

Reputation: 254771

since p points to an array of 5 ints

That much is correct.

dereferencing it should give the first value

No, it's type is "pointer to array"; dereferencing that gives "array", which decays to an int* pointer when you do just about anything with it - including printing it.

If you had a pointer to int

int * p = a;

then *p would indeed give the first array element.

Upvotes: 6

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