Question

In some code that I read, there was an initializing statement like this

char *array[]= { "something1", "something2", "something3" };

What does this mean, and what does that pointer actually point to?
How is that allocated in memory, and how can I access every element and every character of an element in that array ?

— Edited —
and please what is the difference in this example between
char array[3];
and
char *array[3];
— Edited —

Answer 1

what that means ?

It’s initializing an array of strings (char *) with three values (three pointers to null-terminating strings)

and what that pointer points to ?

It should point to the first element in the char* array

how is that allocated in memory ?

It will allocate enough memory to store the three strings followed by null-terminators, as well as the three pointers to those strings:

array --> pointer to three sequential memory addresses

array[0] --> something1{\0}
array[1] --> something2{\0}
array[2] --> something3{\0}

Note that the strings may not necessarily be in sequential memory

and how can I access every element

if by “element” you mean the string, you can loop though the pointers:

for(int i=0; i<3; i++)
{
    char* element = array[i];
}

and every character of an element in that array

well, you could access the chars using array syntax (element[i]) but I would recommend using the C string functions for safety (so you don’t have to worry about accessing memory outside the range of the string)