Doing extra scaling in pointer arithmetic

In pointer arithmetic, the integer to be added or subtracted to pointer is interpreted not as change of address but as number of elements to move.

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    int array[] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
    int *ptr = &array[0];
    int *ptr2 = ptr + sizeof(int) * 2; /* wrong */
    printf("%d %d\n", *ptr, *ptr2);
    return 0;
}

This code does extra scaling in calculating pointer assigned to ptr2. If sizeof(int) is 4, which is typical in modern 32-bit environments, the expression stands for “8 elements after array[0]”, which is out-of-range, and it invokes undefined behavior.

To have ptr2 point at what is 2 elements after array[0], you should simply add 2.

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    int array[] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
    int *ptr = &array[0];
    int *ptr2 = ptr + 2;
    printf("%d %d\n", *ptr, *ptr2); /* "1 3" will be printed */
    return 0;
}

Explicit pointer arithmetic using additive operators may be confusing, so using array subscripting may be better.

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    int array[] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
    int *ptr = &array[0];
    int *ptr2 = &ptr[2];
    printf("%d %d\n", *ptr, *ptr2); /* "1 3" will be printed */
    return 0;
}

E1[E2] is identical to (*((E1)+(E2))) (N1570 6.5.2.1, paragraph 2), and &(E1[E2]) is equivalent to ((E1)+(E2)) (N1570 6.5.3.2, footnote 102).

Alternatively, if pointer arithmetic is preferred, casting the pointer to address a different data type can allow byte addressing. Be careful though: endianness can become an issue, and casting to types other than ‘pointer to character’ leads to strict aliasing problems.

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    int array[3] = {1,2,3};  // 4 bytes * 3 allocated
    unsigned char *ptr = (unsigned char *) array;  // unsigned chars only take 1 byte
    /*
     * Now any pointer arithmetic on ptr will match
     * bytes in memory.  ptr can be treated like it
     * was declared as: unsigned char ptr[12];
     */

    return 0;
}