Snippet

Multi-Dimensional Array Subscripting via Pointers to Array Types

Passing multi-dimensional arrays to functions in C often decays matrix parameters into pointers to single rows. By specifying a pointer to a variable-length array type int (*matrix)[cols], C preserves exact two-dimensional indexing syntax while maintaining memory stride awareness based on dynamic run-time column counts.

snippet.c

#include <stdio.h>
 
void process_matrix(int rows, int cols, int (*matrix)[cols]) {
    for (int r = 0; r < rows; ++r) {
        for (int c = 0; c < cols; ++c) {
            matrix[r][c] = r * cols + c;
        }
    }
}
 
int main(void) {
    int grid[3][4];
    process_matrix(3, 4, grid);
    printf("Element [2][1] = %d\n", grid[2][1]);
    return 0;
}

Breakdown

void process_matrix(int rows, int cols, int (*matrix)[cols])

Declares matrix parameter as pointer to array of 'cols' integers to maintain 2D subscripting logic.

matrix[r][c] = r * cols + c;

Accesses dynamic array element using native double bracket subscript syntax.

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Multi-Dimensional Array Subscripting via Pointers to Array Types

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