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From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: char (*a)[]
Message-ID: <994@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: Mon, 24-Aug-87 12:39:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: haddock.994
Posted: Mon Aug 24 12:39:37 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Aug-87 04:05:53 EDT
References: <8942@brl-adm.ARPA>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 24

In article <8942@brl-adm.ARPA> DHowell.ElSegundo@Xerox.COM writes:
>char (*a)[10];  char b[10];  a = &b;
>
>However, as I understand it, b is actually &b[0],

A better way to state this rule is something like "the array-valued expression
b, if used in a rvalue context, will automatically be converted to the
pointer-valued expression which is conceptually &b[0]".  Since the premise is
false, the rule does not apply in this situation.

(Others have already mentioned that PCC interprets &b as a typo for b, and that
ANSI has fixed this, making the above code legal and useful.)

>What exactly does a point to?  Does it point to the first element of an
>array?  Does it point to a descriptor of an array?

As stated by its declaration, a points to an array.  Thus, if you dereference
it, you get an array (which, if used in an rvalue context, will be converted
to a pointer).  Your other two questions don't make sense, unless you rewrite
them as "If I cast a into a different pointer type and dereference it, will I
get ...?".  In this form, the answers are likely to be "Yes" and "No",
respectively; but I strongly discourage that type of code.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint