c / intermediate
Snippet
Scaling in Pointer Arithmetic
Pointer arithmetic in C is automatically scaled by the size of the data type. Incrementing an integer pointer moves it forward by the number of bytes an 'int' occupies, not just one byte.
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#include <stdio.h>int main() {int arr[] = {10, 20, 30};int *ptr = arr;printf("Value: %d\n", *ptr);ptr++; // Moves by sizeof(int)printf("Next Value: %d\n", *ptr);return 0;}
Breakdown
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int *ptr = arr;
The pointer is initialized to the address of the first element in the array.
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ptr++;
Advances the pointer to the next element by adding sizeof(int) bytes to the address.