Question

In the following code snippet, what can be done to a) hush the compiler, and b) clean up the eye-crossing pointer mess?

extern struct tree *sintablein[sintablesize];
struct tree *(*tablein)[];
int i;

tablein = &sintablein;     // The compiler complains:
                           // "redundant & applied to array (warning)" and
                           // "illegal conversion between pointer types (warning)"

for(i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
    struct tree *tablemember = (*tablein)[i];   // However, this works like a charm.
    // Do stuff with tablemember
}

The only way I was able to get this far was with the very helpful http://cdecl.org/. In particular regarding (b), how can I simplify the pointers and dereferences as much as possible?

Answer 1

I would do it like this:

extern struct tree *sintablein[sintablesize];
struct tree **tablein = sintablein;

// ...

for(i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
    struct tree *tablemember = tablein[i];
    // Do stuff with tablemember
}

Note that when you did (*tablein)[i] you were taking the first element of the tablein array and treating it as an array of struct tree items instead of a single struct tree* pointer. That’s probably not what you intended.