Question

I want to copy an int array to another int array. They use the same define for length so they’ll always be of the same length.

What are the pros/cons of the following two alternatives of the size parameter to memcpy()?

memcpy(dst, src, ARRAY_LENGTH*sizeof(int));

or

memcpy(dst, src, sizeof(dst));

Will the second option always work? Regardless of the content?

One thing that favors the last one is that if the array were to change, it’ll be some house-keeping to update the memcpy()‘s.

Answer 1

As long as dst is declared as an array with a size, sizeof will return the size of that array in bytes:

int dst[ARRAY_LENGTH];

memcpy( dst, src, sizeof(dst) ); // Good, sizeof(dst) returns sizeof(int) * ARRAY_LENGTH

If dst just happens to be a pointer to the first element of such an array (which is the same type as the array itself), it wont work:

int buffer[ARRAY_LENGTH];
int* dst = &buffer[0];

memcpy( dst, src, sizeof(dst) ); // Bad, sizeof(dst) returns sizeof(int*)