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Greyson Morrow
279 PointsWhy a pointer for c and not for r
Just wondering in the last video, why in our function do we have a pointer for c but not for r?
2 Answers
Gloria Dwomoh
13,116 PointsHi Greyson, that happens because the instructor plans to pass an array to the function. The 'r' doesn't hold an array of elements so you can pass it into the function as is, but since "c" is an array by using a pointer, you point to the address of the 1st element of the array with helps you get to the other elements as well if needed. That way when you select c[1] for example it knows where to access the value of the array stored in that position by calculating its offset from the 1st element of the array. I hope this kind of explains it.
Greyson Morrow
279 PointsThank you. That is what I assumed. But then I checked my notes from a couple videos before when he went through explaining pointers for the first time and he used one for *lesson and it was being pointed to c that wasn't an array. Was he just doing this to show how pointers work? Or why was one needed in that case when it wasn't an array?
Gloria Dwomoh
13,116 PointsYou can create pointer variables to point to addresses or create null pointers. Basically a pointer points to an address, it doesn't hold the array but points to the address of the array for example (specifically the 1st element usually.) I haven't seen that video to be honest, but if this doesn't cover it up you can show me the video so I can explain what the instructor is doing.