Passing Arrays To Functions

Passing One-dimensional Array to a Function

Example 1: Passing single element of an array to function

#include <stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>

void display(int age)

{

    printf("%d", age);

}

void main()

{

    int ageArray[] = {12, 23, 14};
   clrscr();

    display(ageArray[2]); //Passing array element ageArray[2]

  getch();

}

Output

14

Example 2: Passing an array to a function(taking value from user)

#include <stdio.h>

void display(int marks[20])

{

   

     int  i, n;

     printf("Enter n:\n ");

     scanf("%d", &n);

      
for(i=0; i<n; ++i)       //Input statement

     {

         printf("Enter number%d: ",i+1);

         scanf("%d", &marks[i]);

        }

   
for(int i=0; i<n; ++i)      // Output statement

     {

       printf("Array is:%d\n", marks[i]);

       }

}

void main()

{

int marks[20], i, n;
clrscr();

    display(marks); //Passing array element marks[n]

getch();

}

Example 3: Passing an entire array to a function

#include <stdio.h>

float average(float age[]);

int main()

{

          float avg, age[] = {12.6, 33, 22.6, 8, 20.5, 49};

          avg = average(age); // Only name of an array is passed as an argument

          printf("Average age = %f", avg);

          return 0;

}

float average(float age[])

{

          int i;

          float avg, sum = 0.0;

          for (i = 0; i < 6; ++i) {

                   sum += age[i];

          }

          avg = (sum / 6);

          return avg;

}

Output:

Average age =24.28333

Passing Multi-dimensional Arrays to Function

To pass multidimensional arrays to a function, only the name of the array is passed (similar to one dimensional array).

Example 1: Passing two-dimensional array to a function

#include <stdio.h>

void displayNumbers(int num[2][2]);

int main()

{

    int num[2][2], i, j;

    printf("Enter 4 numbers:\n");

    for (i = 0; i < 2; ++i)

        for (j = 0; j < 2; ++j)

            scanf("%d", &num[i][j]);

    // passing multi-dimensional array to a function

    displayNumbers(num);

    return 0;

}

void displayNumbers(int num[2][2])

{

    int i, j;

    printf("Displaying:\n");

    for (i = 0; i < 2; ++i)

        for (j = 0; j < 2; ++j)

            printf("%d\n", num[i][j]);

}