C Programming Absolute Beginner's Guide (3rd Edition)

FIGURE 25.1 The array name is a pointer to the first value in the array.

Because the array name is a pointer (that can’t be changed), you can print the first value in the array
like this:

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printf("The first value is %d.\n", vals[0]);

But more important for this chapter, you can print the first array value like this, too:

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printf("The first value is %d.\n", *vals);

As you’ll see in a moment, this is also equivalent and accesses vals[0]:

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printf("The first value is %d.\n", *(vals+0));

Warning

The fact that an array is a fixed constant pointer is why you can’t put just an array name

on the left side of an equals sign. You can’t change a constant. (Remember, though, that

C relaxes this rule only when you first define the array because C has yet to fix the

array at a specific address.)

Getting Down in the List

Because an array name is nothing more than a pointer to the first value in the array, if you want the
second value, you only have to add 1 to the array name and dereference that location. This set of
printf() lines

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