What is the meaning of changing char pointer to int pointer

Question

I have the following code from previous exam in c:

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    char s[] = "123";
    int* a = (int*) s;
    printf(("%x"),*a);
    return 0;
}

The output is: 333231

My question is why? how does changing the pointer effect it?

Answer 1

You don't have to declare a separate variable. This would do:

printf(("%x"),(int*)s);

The pointer type dictates how the pointee is interpreted when the pointer is dereferenced.