How to dynamically allocate a contiguous block of memory for a 2D array

Question

If I allocate a 2D array like this int a[N][N]; it will allocate a contiguous block of memory.

But if I try to do it dynamically like this :

<

Answer 1

The best way is to allocate a pointer to an array,

int (*a)[cols] = malloc(rows * sizeof *a);
if (a == NULL) {
    // alloc failure, handle or exit
}

for(int i = 0; i < rows; ++i) {
    for(int j = 0; j < cols; ++j) {
        a[i][j] = i+j;
    }
}

If the compiler doesn't support variable length arrays, that only works if cols is a constant expression (but then you should upgrade your compiler anyway).