Question

I’m working on the following homework problem from C for Scientists and Engineers:

Given the following declarations and assignments, what do these expressions evaluate to?

int a1[10] = {9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1}
int *p1, *p2;
p1 = a1+3;
Line 14: p2 = *a1[2];

I’m trying to compile this code with gcc, but when I do so, it gives me the following error:

w03_3_prob15.c: In function 'main':
w03_3_prob15.c:14:7: error: invalid type argument of unary '*' (have 'int')

I’m using the following command to compile:

gcc -o w03_3_prob15 w03_3_prob15.c -std=c99

I’m really not sure what to do. Do you have any ideas on how to fix this error?

Answer 1

The line doesn’t compile because it’s incorrect in the book. From the author’s Errata page:

Page 438, line 17 from the bottom.
p2 = *a1[2]; 
should be  p2 = &a1[2];