Pointer vs array in C

Both pointers and arrays are fundamental concepts in C, but they serve different purposes and behave differently.

Pointer in C  

 A pointer is a variable that stores the memory address of another variable.

Example:

// Program for pointer in C
#include<stdio.h> 

int main() {
    int x = 10;
    int *ptr;

    ptr = &x;  // Assigning address of x to ptr
    
    printf("Value of x: %d\n", x);
    printf("Address of x: %p\n", &x);
    printf("Value stored in ptr: %p\n", ptr);
    printf("Value pointed by ptr: %d\n", *ptr);

    return 0;
}

Output:

Value of x: 10
Address of x: 0x7fff5fbffb6c
Value stored in ptr: 0x7fff5fbffb6c
Value pointed by ptr: 10

Array in C  

An array is a collection of elements of the same type stored in contiguous memory locations.

Example:

// Program for Array in C
#include<stdio.h> 

int main() {
    int arr[5] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
   
    printf("First element of array: %d\n", arr[0]);
    printf("Address of first element: %p\n", &arr[0]);
    printf("Address of array: %p\n", arr);
    printf("Value pointed by arr: %d\n", *arr);

    return 0;
}

Output:

First element of array: 1
Address of first element: 0x7fff5fbffb70
Address of array: 0x7fff5fbffb70
Value pointed by arr: 1

Differences between Pointer and Array 

Feature	Pointer	Array
Memory Allocation	Points to a single memory location.	Allocates contiguous memory for multiple elements.
Size	Size depends on architecture (e.g., 4 bytes in 32-bit, 8 bytes in 64-bit).	Size is calculated by multiplying a number of elements by size of each element.
Accessing Elements	Dereferenced to access the value at the pointed address.	Accessed using indices.
Arithmetic	Supports pointer arithmetic.	Index-based arithmetic.
Initialization	Can be initialized with an address or dynamically allocated memory.	Can be initialized with a list of values or dynamically allocated.