I have trouble understanding what pointer2 contains. The second printf prints llo World, but the third one prints Hey you guys!. Why would it be like that if strcpy copies y you guys!\n into llo World. From my understanding of the below program the last output supposed to be llo Worldy you guys!\n, isn’t it?
int main()
{
char str_a[20]; // a 20 element character array
char *pointer; // a pointer, meant for a character array
char *pointer2; // and yet another one
strcpy(str_a, "Hello World\n");
pointer = str_a; // set the first pointer to the start of the array
printf("%p\n", pointer);
pointer2 = pointer + 2; // set the second one 2 bytes further in
printf("%s", pointer2); // print it
strcpy(pointer2, "y you guys!\n"); // copy into that spot
printf("%s", pointer); // print again
}
>Solution :
The pointer pointer points to the first character of the array str_a.
pointer = str_a;
The array contains the string "Hello World\n".
The pointer pointer2 points to the third element of the string
pointer2 = pointer + 2;
that is it points to "llo World\n".
Then this substring is overwritten keeping unchanged str_a[0] and str_a[1].
strcpy(pointer2, "y you guys!\n");
So the array str_a contains the string "Hey you guys!\n"
In fact the above call of strcpy is equivalent to
strcpy( &str_a[2], "y you guys!\n");
And this call
printf("%s", pointer);
outputs the string.
That is "He" (starting from str_a[0]) plus "y you guys!\n" (starting from str_a[2])yields the result string.