C Passing Pointers to Functions

C Pointers

C language allows you to pass pointers to functions; you simply need to declare the function parameters as pointer types.

In the following example, we pass a pointer to an unsigned long to the function, and change this value within the function:

Example

#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
 
void getSeconds(unsigned long *par);

int main ()
{
   unsigned long sec;


   getSeconds( &sec );

   /* Output the actual value */
   printf("Number of seconds: %ld\n", sec );

   return 0;
}

void getSeconds(unsigned long *par)
{
   /* Get the current number of seconds */
   *par = time( NULL );
   return;
}

( ) calling the write operation, and so on. In practice, the pointer action can be associated with a mouse or other GUI objects to achieve the corresponding purpose.

Number of seconds :1294450468

Functions that can accept pointers as parameters can also accept arrays as parameters, as shown below:

Example

#include <stdio.h>
 
/* Function declaration */
double getAverage(int *arr, int size);
 
int main ()
{
   /* An integer array with 5 elements */
   int balance[5] = {1000, 2, 3, 17, 50};
   double avg;
 
   /* Pass a pointer to the array as an argument */
   avg = getAverage( balance, 5 ) ;
 
   /* Output the return value */
   printf("Average value is: %f\n", avg );
   
   return 0;
}

double getAverage(int *arr, int size)
{
  int    i, sum = 0;      
  double avg;          
 
  for (i = 0; i < size; ++i)
  {
    sum += arr[i];
  }
 
  avg = (double)sum / size;
 
  return avg;
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following results:

Average value is: 214.40000

C Pointers

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