Day 1: The Array Lie (Arrays vs Pointers in C)

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

Today marks Day 1 of my 30‑Day Coding Challenge to master C internals, algorithms, and database design.

Why am I doing this? In a world of AI and high‑level abstractions, understanding how memory works under the hood is what separates a coder from an engineer. I want to build that foundational strength.

The Array Lie

We often think of arrays as rigid lists. In C, the variable name of an array is actually just a pointer to the first element.

As shown in the snippet, numbers[1] is really just a human‑readable way of writing *(numbers + 1). The computer adds the size of the data type to the base address to find the value.

Source Code

📂 View the source code on GitHub: