What does (char *) x or (void *) z mean?

Question

I know char *x means a pointer to char, but I\'m confused about what (char*) x means.

Answer 1

The expression (char *)x is a type cast which returns the value of x converted to type char *.

The results of a cast can be very different depending on the operand and target types: For example, you can use casts to round floating-point values to integer precision, get rid of qualifiers like const, convert a pointer to integer for advanced address calculations like alignment checks and many other things.

However, not all possible casts result in legal values - eg, casting pointers can violate aliasing and alignment rules.

Converting a (valid) non-function pointer to char * is always legal and useful when doing byte-based pointer arithmetics.