arrays

One day a guy asked me how to print a 2d string array in C. So I coded an example for him. But just for curiosity, I examined the assembly code. In C both string[0][1] and *(*string + 1) are the same. But in reality, the compiler writes the assembly code in 2 different ways. If we use string[0][1] it will directly move the value from the stack. When we dereference a pointer *(*string + 1) it will actually dereference the address pointed inside the register. This happens only in the MinGW GCC compiler. I compiled this using the latest on Windows which is 8.2.0-3 by the time I am writing this.

The assembly code in the left is this one.

#include <stdio.h>
 
int main() {
    char *string[][2] = { 
     {"Osanda","Malith"},
     {"ABC","JKL"},
     {"DEF","MNO"}, 
};
 
    printf("%s %s\n", string[0][0], string[0][1]);
}

The assembly code on the right is this.

#include <stdio.h>
 
int main() {
    char *string[][2] = { 
     {"Osanda","Malith"},
     {"ABC","JKL"},
     {"DEF","MNO"}, 
};
 
    printf("%s %s\n", **string, *(*string + 1));
}

(more…)