In C, accessing my array index is faster or accessing by pointer is faster?

Question

In C, accessing an array index is faster or accessing by pointer is faster? By faster I mean, which one would take less clock cycle. The array is not an constant array.

Answer 1

Simple index operations compile to the same machine code on every compiler I've ever touched. By index is usually recommended for readability.

More complex cases that involve different logic for pointer access vs array indexing need to be examined on a case-by-case basis. If you are in doubt, profile your code - as always.