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C-Pointers

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Soham Chakraborty
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17 views20 pages

C-Pointers

Uploaded by

Soham Chakraborty
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Pointers in C

Computing Lab
https://www.isical.ac.in/~dfslab

Indian Statistical Institute

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 1 / 16


Pointers

Memory = consecutively numbered storage cells (bytes)


Variable can occupy one or more contiguous bytes, depending on its
type
Address of a variable = serial number of “first” byte occupied by the
variable
Pointer holds the address of a variable
Pointer / address itself may be (usually is) stored in another variable

x p ...

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 2 / 16


Basic operations

& – address / location operator


* – dereferencing operator
char c, *cp; /* neither c nor cp is initialised */
int i, *ip; /* neither i nor ip is initialised */

cp = &c; ip = &i; /* cp, ip are initialised now */


*cp = 0; /* same as c = 0; c is initialised now */

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 3 / 16


Pointer arithmetic

Byte addresses 100 104 108 100 + 4n


[0] [1] [2] [3] ... [n-1]

n elements
Pointer values
ip1 = ip2 - n ip2 = ip1 + n

points to n-th element (of the proper type) after what ip


ip1 + n
is pointing to

points to n-th element (of the proper type) before what


ip2 - n
ip is pointing to

ip2 - ip1 number of elements between ip1 and ip2

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 4 / 16


Pointers and arrays

An array name is synonymous with the address of its first element.


Conversely, a pointer can be regarded as an array of elements starting
from wherever it is pointing.

But:
int a[10] = {...}, *p;
CORRECT INCORRECT
p = a; /* same as p = &(a[0]); */ &p &a
*p = 5; /* same as a[0] = 5; */
p[2] = 6; /* same as a[2] = 6; */ p = a; a = p;
*(a+3) = 7; /* same as a[3] = 7; */ p++; a++;

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 5 / 16


Pointer-array equivalence (contd.)

Using pointer arithmetic Using array elements


p = a + i p = &(a[i])

*p = x a[i] = x

*(p+j) = x p[j] = x or a[i+j] = x

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 6 / 16


Review questions

1. What does the following do and why? (see strcpy.c)


1 char a[32] = "Introduction", b[32] = "Programming", *s, *t;
2 s = a; t = b;
3 while (*s++ = *t++);

2. What output is generated by the following code?


for (i=0; i < 10; i++)
printf("abcdefghijklmnop\n" + i);

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 7 / 16


Review questions — Solutions

1. String copying

do {
*s = *t;
s++; t++;
} while (*t != '\0');

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 8 / 16


Review questions — Solutions

1. String copying

do {
*s = *t;
s++; t++;
} while (*t != '\0');

do {
*s++ = *t++;
} while (*t != '\0');

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 8 / 16


Review questions — Solutions

1. String copying

do {
*s = *t;
s++; t++;
} while (*t != '\0');

do {
*s++ = *t++;
} while (*t != '\0');

while ((*s++ = *t++) != '\0');

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 8 / 16


Review questions — Solutions

2. Think of the problem this way:

p = "abcdefghijklmnop\n";
printf(p);

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 9 / 16


Review questions — Solutions

2. Think of the problem this way:

p = "abcdefghijklmnop\n";
printf(p);

p = "abcdefghijklmnop\n";
printf(p + 2);

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 9 / 16


Review questions — Solutions

2. Think of the problem this way:

p = "abcdefghijklmnop\n";
printf(p);

p = "abcdefghijklmnop\n";
printf(p + 2);

p = "abcdefghijklmnop\n";
printf(p + i);

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 9 / 16


Topics to be covered

1. How do you allocate space for an array if you do not know (a


reasonable upper bound on) the size when writing your program?
2. What to do if an array is full, and you need to store more elements?
3. Multi-dimensional arrays
4. Difference between int a[M][N] and int **a; ←− LATER

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 10 / 16


Variable length arrays

OK

int num_elts;
WRONG

int num_elts; // not initialised


scanf("%d", &num_elts);
int array[num_elts]; // num_elts == ???
int array[num_elts];

Caution: compile and run large-vlas.c

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 11 / 16


Allocating memory

Syntax:
#include <stdlib.h>
(type *) malloc(n * sizeof(type))
(type *) calloc(n, sizeof(type))
(type *) realloc(ptr, n * sizeof(type))
malloc, calloc, realloc
free(ptr) return void pointers

Convenient macros: (see common.h)


#define Malloc(n,type) (type *) malloc( (unsigned) ((n)*sizeof(type)))
#define Realloc(loc,n,type) (type *) realloc( (char *)(loc), \
(unsigned) ((n)*sizeof(type)))

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 12 / 16


Extending an array using realloc

int *array, capacity = 100, num_elts = 0;

/* Initial allocation */
if (NULL == (array = Malloc(capacity, int))) {
perror("out of memory");
exit(1); // instead of exit(0)
}

...

/* "Grow" the array when required */


if (num_elts == capacity) {
capacity *= 2;
if (NULL == (array = Realloc(array, capacity, int)) {
perror("out of memory");
exit(1);
}
}

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 13 / 16


Multi-dimensional arrays

Multi-dimensional array = array of arrays = pointer to pointer


int **a, i;
a = (int **) malloc(rows * sizeof(int *));
for (i = 0; i < rows; i++)
a[i] = (int *) malloc(cols * sizeof(int));

a a[0]
...
a[1]
...
. .
. a[rows-1].
...
Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 14 / 16
Multi-dimensional arrays: row-major storage

mat
cols
... ... ... ...
temp
rows

..

int ii;
int *temp;
if (NULL == (temp = (int *) malloc(rows*cols*sizeof(int))) ||
NULL == (mat = (int **) malloc(rows * sizeof(int *))))
ERR_MESG("Out of memory");
for (ii = 0; ii < rows; temp += cols, ii++)
mat[ii] = temp;

Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 15 / 16


Programming problems

1. Consider 2 sequences of letters (a–z), A and B , stored in arrays.


(a) Write a program to find the number of (possibly overlapping)
occurrences of the sequence B in A.
(b) Write a program to find whether the multisets corresponding to A and
B are equal.
2. Write a program that first reads multiple lines of text from the terminal,
and then, depending on the user’s choice, prints either the odd- or the
even-numbered lines, either in their original or in reverse order.
You may assume that
lines are numbered starting with one;
each line is no more than 80 characters long;
the input text will not consist of more than 10 lines.

Redesign your program so that it will run correctly even if the number
of lines in the input text is not known a priori.
Computing Lab (ISI) Pointers 16 / 16

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