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Arrays and Pointers

• When an array is passed into a function, it is actually a pointer to the starting element of the array.

  double maximum(const double a[], int a_size)
  {
     if (a_size == 0) return 0;
     double highest = a[0];
     int i;
     for (i = 0; i < a_size; i++)
        if (a[i] > highest)
           highest = a[i];
     return highest;
  }
  

• The declaration gives the illusion that an entire array is passed to the function, but in fact the function receives only the starting address of the array.

  double maximum(const double* a, int a_size)
  {
     /* identical code as above yields same results */
     . . . 
  }
  

• It is essential that the function also knows where the array ends.

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