Thread: Passing 2 dimensional array to a function

Hi guys,

How can I pass a 2 dimensional array to a function using [] and pointer *?

Code:

void InputString(????)  // Emp[][] ,  **Emp  ??
{
}

int main(void)
{
	char cEmployee[5][20];
	int i;

	for (i=0;i<5;++i)
	{
		puts("Enter name:");
		InputString(??????);
                }
               return 0;
}

Many thanks

If i remember correctly, this should do it:

Code:

void foo(char* array)
{

}

int main()
{
    char array[10][10];
    foo(array);
}

Basically you just pass the pointer to the first element in the array.

http://c-faq.com/aryptr/ary2dfunc2.html
http://c-faq.com/aryptr/pass2dary.html

ssharish

The easiest way is to just make the function parameter look like the same type you're passing to it, then just pass the array:

Code:

void InputString(char employee[5][20]) {}
/* ... */
char cEmployee[5][20];
InputString(cEmployee);

As has been hinted, there are multiple ways of writing InputString that are the same:

Code:

void InputString(char employee[5][20]);
void InputString(char employee[][20]);
void InputString(char (*employee)[20]);

Why these are all equivalent is probably a matter best left for later in your C education. For now, just pick one: the one listed second seems to be most common, in my experience.

They are not the same.

http://c-faq.com/aryptr/index.html

You don't need to pass the function the size of the array's first dimension, but you may (the compiler will ignore it). The last dimension size, you must pass though.

Originally Posted by robwhit

They are not the same.

http://c-faq.com/aryptr/index.html

If this is in reply to my post, please explain how those function prototypes differ; I'm quite sure they don't.

If it's not, then ignore this.

Originally Posted by robwhit

You can use pointer arithmetic with the pointer version, not with the others.

The 2nd one has an unspecified number of elements, the first one has a specifed number of elements. That means that if you enter in an invalid index constant in the first one, you'll probably get a compile error.

And whatever other differences are in the link.

They're all the same; note that these are prototypes, and as a parameter of a prototype, what looks like an array is really a pointer (this is not the case elsewhere, of course).

You can indeed do pointer arithmetic with the parameter of all three methods because they are identical. You can do pointer arithmetic on arrays, too (because arrays decay into pointers in most cases), but I presume you mean something like employee++? That's still possible with all the prototypes I showed due, again, to the fact that arrays aren't really arrays (in this particular context).

Here's a demonstration:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

static void f1(int *p)
{
  printf("%d\n", *++p);
}

static void f2(int p[])
{
  printf("%d\n", *++p);
}

int main(void)
{
  int a[] = { 1, 2 };

  f1(a);
  f2(a);

  return 0;
}

I used a single array for simplicity; this naturally holds for multidimensional arrays, but it gets slightly more complicated because you start to deal with pointers to arrays.

You can, perhaps, further convince yourself with this:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

static void f(char p[11])
{
  printf("In f(): %lu\n", (unsigned long)sizeof p);
}

int main(void)
{
  char a[11];

  printf("In main(): %lu\n", (unsigned long)sizeof a);
  f(a);

  return 0;
}

Unless you're on an absolutely bizarre system, two different numbers should come out: 11 in main() (this won't change regardless of platform), and probably 4 in f() (depending on the size of a pointer).

Despite the fact that it looks like an array, inside the function f(), p is a pointer.

This is covered in section 6.4 of the FAQ link you posted.

Dang, you're right. It even keeps the value assigned and does no type check whatsoever on the size.

Even this prints 4:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
typedef int arr[5];

static void f1(arr p)
{
        typeof (p) arr2;
        printf("%lu\n", (long unsigned) sizeof arr2);
}

int main(void)
{
        int a[3] = { 1, 2 };
        f1(a);

        return 0;
}

I thought that they worked like arrays and that the FAQ was just keeping things simple or something.

I really should use my compiler more...

Thanks for pointing this out.