Question

What I was always doing is:

int arr[] = {2, 3, 4};

and it always worked.

I’ve heard of a better way to initialize new array, using the pointer:

int *arr = {2, 3, 4};

However, it doesn’t work in any IDE, it throws some errors like int differs in levels of indirection from int, or too many initializers. How should I do this?

Answer 1

That initialization seems to work for me, on gcc, but not correctly.

int *arr = {2, 3, 4}; //weird behaviour, stores first value `2` as read-only

int arr[] = {2, 3, 4}; //array decl

The former isn’t a correct way to initialize an array.

For a char*, it makes more sense

char* arr = "abcde"; //Pointer to a read-only char array in memory

char[] arr = "abcde"; //Normal char array

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The difference:

The former is written to the Rodata (constant, read-only data) section of the assembly, while the latter, resides in the read/write Data-Segment. Any attempt to change the former, might result in a segmentation-fault.

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The places where the values are stored are different.

char* arr = "abcde";
arr[1] = 'f'; //(undefined behavior)

char[] arr2 = "abcde";
arr2[1] = 'f'; //no issue