How does de-referencing work for pointer to an array?

Question

Pointer to array of elements when dereferenced return an address. Since it is holding the address of the first element of the array, dereferencing it should return a value.

Answer 1

The behavior you see is a result of 'c' interpreting arr as a pointer to the memory location of the first element. Pointer to the array &arr will be an address of the array itself in memory, which is also the address of its first element. As a result arr and &arr yield the same values. Try this:

printf("array = %p, &array = %p\n", arr, &arr);

Thought the values are the same, types are different. arr is a variable, whether &arr is a pointer to the variable.

ptr reflects the same picture. Its value ptr = &arr makes it a pointer to an array. It contains the address of the array. *ptr returns the array itself, which in 'c' interpretation is the address of the first element of the array. As a result values for ptr and *ptr are the same as for &arr and arr.

Hope it makes it clearer (not murkier) :-)