C Program to Print Array Elements Using Pointers

In this article, we will write a C program to print array elements using pointers. The program first takes the elements of the array from the user as input and then prints each element using pointers.

Sample Example:

Input: 
Enter the size of the array: 5
Enter the array elements: 10 20 30 40 50

Output:
The Array Elements are: 10 20 30 40 50 

In C programming, there are actually two ways you can access the elements of an array: First, using the array index and second using the pointers.

A pointer in C programming is a special type of variable that holds the memory address of another variable. It is declared by putting an asterisk symbol * before the name of the pointer variable. For example, *ptr, *myptr, etc.

Now, if we talk about arrays in C, they do also use pointers behind the scenes. When you declare an array for eg. int arr[], the name of the array i.e. arr is actually a pointer to the very first element of the array.

This means that arr[0] is equivalent to *arr, arr[1] is equivalent to *(arr + 1), arr[2] is equivalent to *(arr + 2) and so on.

What this also means is that we can directly use the array name for eg. arr or (arr + 1), etc. in the scanf() function without the ampersand symbol & to take the elements of the array as input from the user.

Let’s put all this together and write a C program to access the array elements using pointers:

// C program to access array elements using pointers
#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    int arr[100], size;
    
    printf("Enter the size of the array: ");
    scanf("%d", &size);
    
    printf("Enter the array elements: ");
    for(int i = 0; i < size; i++){
        scanf("%d", (arr + i));
    }
    
    printf("The Array Elements are: ");
    for(int i = 0; i < size; i++){
        printf("%d ", *(arr + i));
    }
    
    return 0;
}

Output:

Enter the size of the array: 5
Enter the array elements: 10 20 30 40 50
The Array Elements are: 10 20 30 40 50 

In this program, we have created an array arr[] of integer data type. The array name itself is used inside the scanf() function to take the array elements from the user.

Note that we have used the expression (arr + i) inside the scanf() function without the ampersand & symbol because the array name is already a pointer variable. So the & symbol is no more required.

To access the array elements, we have first dereferenced the array by putting a * symbol and then incremented it by 1 in each iteration of the for loop i.e. *(arr + i). Here

• arr[0] is equivalent to *(arr + 0) and &arr[0] is equivalent to (arr + 0).
• arr[1] is equivalent to *(arr + 1) and &arr[1] is equivalent to (arr + 1).
• arr[2] is equivalent to *(arr + 1) and &arr[2] is equivalent to (arr + 2).
• …
• arr[i] is equivalent to *(arr + i) and &arr[i] is equivalent to (arr + i).

I hope you will find this article helpful. Thanks for reading.