"Decay" refers to the implicit conversion of an expression from an array type to a pointer type. In most contexts, when the compiler sees an array expression it converts the type of the expression from "N-element array of T" to "pointer to T" and sets the value of the expression to the address of the first element of the array. The exceptions to this rule are when an array is an operand of either the sizeof or & operators, or the array is a string literal being used as an initializer in a declaration.

假设有以下代码:

char a[80];
strcpy(a, "This is a test");

表达式a的类型是“80-element array of char”，表达式“This is a test”的类型是“15-element array of char”(在C语言中;在c++中，字符串字面值是const char数组)。然而，在对strcpy()的调用中，两个表达式都不是sizeof或&的操作数，因此它们的类型被隐式转换为“指向char的指针”，并且它们的值被设置为每个表达式中第一个元素的地址。strcpy()接收的不是数组，而是指针，正如它的原型所示:

char *strcpy(char *dest, const char *src);

这和数组指针不是一回事。例如:

char a[80];
char *ptr_to_first_element = a;
char (*ptr_to_array)[80] = &a;

ptr_to_first_element和ptr_to_array都有相同的值;a的基址。但它们是不同的类型，区别对待，如下图所示:

a[i] == ptr_to_first_element[i] == (*ptr_to_array)[i] != *ptr_to_array[i] != ptr_to_array[i]

请记住，表达式a[i]被解释为*(a+i)(只有在数组类型转换为指针类型时才有效)，因此a[i]和ptr_to_first_element[i]的工作原理相同。表达式(*ptr_to_array)[i]被解释为*(*a+i)。表达式*ptr_to_array[i]和ptr_to_array[i]可能会根据上下文导致编译器警告或错误;如果你期望它们的值是a[i]，它们肯定会出错。

sizeof a == sizeof *ptr_to_array == 80

同样，当数组是sizeof的操作数时，它不会转换为指针类型。

sizeof *ptr_to_first_element == sizeof (char) == 1
sizeof ptr_to_first_element == sizeof (char *) == whatever the pointer size
                                                  is on your platform

Ptr_to_first_element是一个简单的char指针。

数组与C/ c++中的指针基本相同，但又不完全相同。一旦你转换一个数组:

const int a[] = { 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 };

转换为指针(不需要强制转换，因此在某些情况下可能会意外发生):

const int* p = a;

你将失去sizeof操作符计算数组中元素的能力:

assert( sizeof(p) != sizeof(a) );  // sizes are not equal

这种丧失的能力被称为“衰退”。

有关更多详细信息，请参阅这篇关于数组衰减的文章。

据说数组会“衰减”成指针。声明为int numbers[5]的c++数组不能被重指向，即不能说numbers = 0x5a5aff23。更重要的是，衰减一词意味着类型和维度的丧失;数字通过丢失维数信息(计数5)衰减为int*，类型不再是int[5]。看看这里没有发生衰变的情况。

如果你是按值传递一个数组，你实际上是在复制一个指针——指向数组第一个元素的指针被复制到形参(形参的类型也应该是数组元素的类型的指针)。这是由于数组的衰减性质;一旦衰变，sizeof就不再给出整个数组的大小，因为它本质上变成了一个指针。这就是为什么首选通过引用或指针传递的原因(以及其他原因)。

传递数组1的三种方法:

void by_value(const T* array)   // const T array[] means the same
void by_pointer(const T (*array)[U])
void by_reference(const T (&array)[U])

后两个将提供适当的sizeof信息，而第一个不会，因为数组参数已经衰减为赋值给形参。

常量U应该在编译时已知。

数组是由c语言中的指针自动传递的，其背后的原理只能推测。

int a[5], int *a and int (*a)[5] are all glorified addresses meaning that the compiler treats arithmetic and deference operators on them differently depending on the type, so when they refer to the same address they are not treated the same by the compiler. int a[5] is different to the other 2 in that the address is implicit and does not manifest on the stack or the executable as part of the array itself, it is only used by the compiler to resolve certain arithmetic operations, like taking its address or pointer arithmetic. int a[5] is therefore an array as well as an implicit address, but as soon as you talk about the address itself and place it on the stack, the address itself is no longer an array, and can only be a pointer to an array or a decayed array i.e. a pointer to the first member of the array.

例如，在int (*a)[5]上，对a的第一次解引用将产生int *(因此相同的地址，只是不同的类型，注意不是int a[5])，对a的指针算术，即a+1或*(a+1)将根据5个int数组的大小(这是它所指向的数据类型)，第二次解引用将产生int。然而，对于int类型a[5]，第一次解引用将产生int类型，指针的算术将与int类型的大小相关。

To a function, you can only pass int * and int (*)[5], and the function casts it to whatever the parameter type is, so within the function you have a choice whether to treat an address that is being passed as a decayed array or a pointer to an array (where the function has to specify the size of the array being passed). If you pass a to a function and a is defined int a[5], then as a resolves to an address, you are passing an address, and an address can only be a pointer type. In the function, the parameter it accesses is then an address on the stack or in a register, which can only be a pointer type and not an array type -- this is because it's an actual address on the stack and is therefore clearly not the array itself.

You lose the size of the array because the type of the parameter, being an address, is a pointer and not an array, which does not have an array size, as can be seen when using sizeof, which works on the type of the value being passed to it. The parameter type int a[5] instead of int *a is allowed but is treated as int * instead of disallowing it outright, though it should be disallowed, because it is misleading, because it makes you think that the size information can be used, but you can only do this by casting it to int (*a)[5], and of course, the function has to specify the size of the array because there is no way to pass the size of the array because the size of the array needs to be a compile-time constant.

我可能会大胆地认为有四(4)种方法将数组作为函数参数传递。这里还有简短但可以工作的代码供您阅读。

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include <cassert>

using namespace std;

// test data
// notice native array init with no copy aka "="
// not possible in C
 const char* specimen[]{ __TIME__, __DATE__, __TIMESTAMP__ };

// ONE
// simple, dangerous and useless
template<typename T>
void as_pointer(const T* array) { 
    // a pointer
    assert(array != nullptr); 
} ;

// TWO
// for above const T array[] means the same
// but and also , minimum array size indication might be given too
// this also does not stop the array decay into T *
// thus size information is lost
template<typename T>
void by_value_no_size(const T array[0xFF]) { 
    // decayed to a pointer
    assert( array != nullptr ); 
}

// THREE
// size information is preserved
// but pointer is asked for
template<typename T, size_t N>
void pointer_to_array(const T (*array)[N])
{
   // dealing with native pointer 
    assert( array != nullptr ); 
}

// FOUR
// no C equivalent
// array by reference
// size is preserved
template<typename T, size_t N>
void reference_to_array(const T (&array)[N])
{
    // array is not a pointer here
    // it is (almost) a container
    // most of the std:: lib algorithms 
    // do work on array reference, for example
    // range for requires std::begin() and std::end()
    // on the type passed as range to iterate over
    for (auto && elem : array )
    {
        cout << endl << elem ;
    }
}

int main()
{
     // ONE
     as_pointer(specimen);
     // TWO
     by_value_no_size(specimen);
     // THREE
     pointer_to_array(&specimen);
     // FOUR
     reference_to_array( specimen ) ;
}

我可能也认为这显示了c++相对于C的优势，至少在引用(双关语)通过引用传递数组。

当然，有些非常严格的项目没有堆分配，没有异常，也没有std:: lib。有人可能会说，c++原生数组处理是关键任务语言特性。

数组衰减意味着，当数组作为参数传递给函数时，它被视为(“衰减为”)指针。

void do_something(int *array) {
  // We don't know how big array is here, because it's decayed to a pointer.
  printf("%i\n", sizeof(array));  // always prints 4 on a 32-bit machine
}

int main (int argc, char **argv) {
    int a[10];
    int b[20];
    int *c;
    printf("%zu\n", sizeof(a)); //prints 40 on a 32-bit machine
    printf("%zu\n", sizeof(b)); //prints 80 on a 32-bit machine
    printf("%zu\n", sizeof(c)); //prints 4 on a 32-bit machine
    do_something(a);
    do_something(b);
    do_something(c);
}

上述情况有两个复杂情况或例外情况。

首先，在C和c++中处理多维数组时，只丢失了第一个维度。这是因为数组在内存中是连续布局的，所以编译器必须知道除第一个维度以外的所有维度，才能计算该内存块的偏移量。

void do_something(int array[][10])
{
    // We don't know how big the first dimension is.
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    int a[5][10];
    int b[20][10];
    do_something(a);
    do_something(b);
    return 0;
}

其次，在c++中，您可以使用模板来推断数组的大小。微软将此用于c++版本的Secure CRT函数(如strcpy_s)，您可以使用类似的技巧可靠地获取数组中的元素数量。