Question

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In C arrays why is this true? a[5] == 5[a]

Is the possibility of both array[index] and index[array] a compiler feature or a language feature. How is the second one possible?

Answer 1

The compiler will turn

index[array]

into

*(index + array)

With the normal syntax it would turn

array[index]

into

*(array + index)

and thus you see that both expressions evaluate to the same value. This holds for both C and C++.