i have a 20x20 array that i need to assign values (can't be random values)
that's why i want to know if i could do a[] []={{........}}
but i guess I need to type in 400 values by typing...
Thank you dmail and tuxdev.
If you have any suggestion please reply me.

James

well as an alternative create and intailise the array in a header file and make it global, you then dont need to pass the address of the array from func to func and neither do you have to create the array using memory funcs.

As far as I know the array[i][j] means *(*array+i)+j correct me if i'm wrong and this is a simple int value. As they told you cannot store a 2 dimensional array in an int. But the is working fine at the beginning of the block, but not in the middle and unfortunately i and j have to be calculable in compile time.

May be like this
And I think to you Mr.kpone... I gave a long string comparison program. You can very well refer to it on how to dynamically allocate two dimensional arrays

sorry my bad. Could you explain shortly why is it working? This pointer stuff is not totaly clear for me.

you can only use this syntax for initialisation.
I.e. when you declare the variable.
Not at runtime.

One can initialize a 2-D integer Array in C as below :

int b[3][3] = {1,1,0,0,0,1,1,0,1};

Pls. note that in all there are 9 elements (3 rows and 3 cols).

I know this post is quite old but just in case somebody still needs it.

You do realize the original poster could have completed both a bachelor's and a master's in the time that's passed since 2005...
Kevin Barry

The key to this problem is that C does not have multidimensional arrays, only one dimensional ones. The declaration

int **b;

creates a pointer to an array, each element of which is a pointer to a one dimensional array. This structure could be set up by

b = (int **)malloc(3*sizeof(int *));
for (i=0;i<3;i++) b[i] = (int *)malloc(3*sizeof(int));

Now

b[3][3]=1;

sets the last element of the array. Note that

b[3][3] = {{1,1,0},{0,0,1},{1,0,1}};

was wrong on two counts: b[3][3] would be an integer variable if it had existed, which it did not; in any case it would be out of range, since arrays are zero-indexed.

Gnu C has an extension: a declaration like

int b[3][3];

sets up a local 3 by 3 array, which may be initialised by

int b[3][3] = {{1,1,0},{0,0,1},{1,0,1}};

but observe that this is an initialisation, performed at compile time, not an assignment. Notice also that both dimensions must be given explicitly. I suspect that b in this case is really an array of 9 integers which is treated as two dimensional, but I cannot be sure. It may be possible to assign (in either method) something like

b[1]={0,0,1};

I cannot say without trying it, not possible on a borrowed MAC without Linux.

There is a fundamental difference between the original C version and the Gnu extension. Malloc creates space on the heap, which is global, whereas the extension allocates local space, scoped to the function in which b is declared.