指向字符数组输出的指针

Question

When we declare a pointer to any integer say we declare it like

int i=5;
int *p=&i;

We use *p to get the value 5 and if we want the address we use p without asterisk sign to get the address. But in case of character array, when we say

char *str="HELLO";

We simply use str to get "HELLO" as output in printf function. Like this,

printf("%s",str);

Here we used str without asterisk.

Why aren't we getting an address and instead getting "HELLO" as output here while we get address in case of pointers to integers when we use the pointer variable without asterisk?

Answer 1

Okay first of all int *p=5; is wrong! you cant do that in the declaration of a pointer. at That time the pointer expects an adress. You should do int *p; and then *p = 5; to assign the value to it.

printf("%s",str); // prints the value of the variable, because its a pointer.
printf("%s",*str); // the * will cause to a segmentation fault

int *p // the * there is just used to tell the compiler that you are declaring a pointer of type integer.

/* another scope after declaring your pointer */

*p //is used to get value of a pointer variable.(dereference it)
&p //is used to get the adress of a pointer variable.
p //contains an adress.