foo[3] *(foo + 3) *(3 + foo) 3[foo] They all do the same thing.

arcticbull · on Aug 23, 2019

Interesting! I assume because the literal is being coerced to be the size of the variable? After all:

    foo[3] == (void *)((usize)foo + (usize)(3 * sizeof(*foo)))

erik_seaberg · on Aug 23, 2019

Yeah, that's how pointer arithmetic works. Adding an int and a pointer assumes an array and gives you a pointer to the nth element in that direction (which had better exist, for your sake). char pointers can be used for byte offsets if a byte is a char on your platform (and it's been quite a while since that wasn't true).

You can also subtract two pointers into the same array and get the distance (in elements, not bytes). a[b - a] == b.