What does getting the address of an array variable mean?

Question

Today I read a C snippet which really confused me:

#include 

int
main(void)
{
    int a[] = {0, 1, 2, 3};

    printf(\"%d\\n\", *(*(&a +         


        

Answer 1

Note that the following is equivalent, but equally nasty:

printf("%d\n", (&a)[1][-1]);

In this case it is in my opinion more explicit what happens:

a pointer to the array a is taken

• the pointer is used as if it were an array: an array of elements like a, i.e. arrays of 4 integers the 1st element of this array is used.

• Since a is not actually an array, but only one element (consisting of four sub-elements!) this indexes the piece of memory directly after a

• the [-1] reads the integer directly preceding the memory directly after a, which is the last sub-element of a