Difference between Arrays And Pointers in C++

Difference between Arrays And Pointers in C++: As we have already learned about the arrays and pointers in the previous articles. Lets us know the difference between them.

Difference between Arrays And Pointers in C++

Pointers	Arrays
A pointer is a place in memory that points to the address of a variable.	An array is a single, pre-allocated chunk of contiguous elements (all of the same type), fixed in size and location.
Pointer can’t be initialized at the definition	An array can be initialized at definition. Example: int num[] = { 2, 4, 5}
A pointer is dynamic in nature. The memory allocation can be resized or freed later.	They are static in nature. Once the memory is allocated, it cannot be resized or freed dynamically.
The assembly code of Pointer is different than Array	The assembly code of Array is different than Pointer
The assembly code of Array is different than Pointer.	A pointer variable can store the address of the only variable
When using the sizeof() operator on a fixed array, sizeof returns the size of the entire array (array length * element size)	When used on a pointer, sizeof returns the size of a memory address (in bytes)
A fixed array knows how long the array it is pointing to	A pointer to the array does not know.
The general form of declaring a pointer variable is: type *name;	General form for declaring a array is :type var_name[size];

Pointers Example:

#include <iostream> 
int main()
{
    int x = 5;
    std::cout<< x <<'\n'; //print the value of variable x
    std::cout<< &x << '\n'; //print the memory address of variable x
    std::cout<< *(&x) << '\n';//print the value at the memory address of variable x (parenthesis not required, but make it easier to read)
    return 0;
}

Output:

5
0x7ffd22feb9dc
5

Arrays Example

#include<iostream>  
using namespace std;  
int main()  
{  
 int arr[5]={10, 0, 20, 0, 30}; //creating and initializing array    
        //traversing array    
       for (int i: arr)     
        {    
            cout<<i<<"\n";    
        }    
}

Output:

10
0
20
0
30