Section 19.11 Arrays and Pointers

Given an array variable such as int myArray[6]; what exactly does the variable myArray itself store (if we don’t add in the brackets to refer to a specific element)? It turns out, myArray holds the address of the zeroth element of the array! That is, myArray is a pointer of type int. So:

myArray == &myArray[0]

But it gets even better than that: The computer can do arithmetic, giving us the ability to easily find the address of myArray[1] or myArray[2], for example:

myArray + 1 == &myArray[1]

myArray + 2 == &myArray[2]

This is called pointer arithmetic. So by adding 1 to the address myArray, the computer automatically locates the address of the next array element, &myArray[1].

Watch the video to find out more.