C programme return 0 while the pointer point to value 3

Question

I thought at the end of the programme, il will print 3 but in fact it is 0.

Can anyone explain how it is happening ?

Here is the code :

int arr[3] = {2, 3, 4};
char *p;
p = arr;
p = (char*)((int*)(p)); // two conversion, means nothing, omit
printf("%d, ", *p);     // point to 2, 
p = (int*)(p+1);  // point to 3 ?
printf("%d", *p);
return 0;

Answer 1

You are treating an array of integers like an array of chars. The line that is marked as "means nothing" actually means a lot.

When you increment char* p by one, you shift your pointer one byte, but in order to point to the arr[1] you need to increment it sizeof(int) bytes. Declare p as int* p , then p+1 will do what you need.

Answer 2

Since p is of type char, p+1 points to one byte past the start of the first integer. So when you read one byte by dereferencing p, you are reading a position in the integer array that contains a zero byte.

Answer 3

If you increment a pointer, it is incremented by its type's size. Here p is character pointer, and If you increment p it points to next character. As character is of 1 byte, p+1 points to next byte to that pointed by p . If p had been an integer pointer, p+1 would point to next integer i,e 3 in your code.

Answer 4

What's going on?

The following lines print char content (here *p ) in int format .

char *p;
printf("%d, ", *p);

It prints 2 because the (current) machine is little-endian (eg x86). If this code is run on a big-endian machine, it would print 0 . [For endian-ness, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness ]

Exercise: If the array initialization is changed to the following, what is the expected print output?

int arr[3] = {0x1a2b3c4d, 3, 4};

Pointer increments

Let's say we have

char * pc = 0xA0;
int  * pi = 0xB0;

pc += 1;    // pc = ?
pi += 1:    // pi = ?

What are the new values of pc and pi ?

Since pc is a pointer to char , the + 1 increments pc by sizeof(char) , which is 1.

However, since pi is a pointer to int , the + 1 increments pi by sizeof(int) . In 32 bit system, sizeof(int) is typically 4, whereas in a 64 bit system, sizeof(int) is typically 8.

pc += 1;    // pc = 0xA1
pi += 1:    // pi = perhaps 0xB4 or 0xB8

Word of Caution

It is okay to experiment for knowledge and curiosity sake, but in real code, accessing the bytes of an int by casting it to char * is not a good idea, it leads to all sorts of endian-portability issues.