In C, does a cast from char* to void* do anything?

Question

Please have a look at the below mentioned code snippet and tell me the difference?

int main()
{
struct sockaddr_in serv_addr, cli_addr;
/* Initialize socket structure */
    bzero((char *) &serv_addr, sizeof(serv_addr));
}

Now, what if i do something similar without typecasting (char *) , then also i feel it will do the same thing? Can someone clarify?

/* Initialize socket structure */
bzero( &serv_addr, sizeof(serv_addr));

Answer 1

Since the first parameter is void * , you only need to cast in C++.

In C this is not necessary, as a void * was introduced ¹ precisely so that you wouldn't need to cast it to or from other object ² pointers. (Similarly with malloc() and other functions that deal with void * s)

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1. In C89.
2. Any non-function pointer.

Answer 2

不需要AnyType*转换，因为bzero()接受void*作为第一个参数，并且AnyType*可以隐式转换为void* 。