Using the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC): Arrays and pointers implementation

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### 4.7 Arrays and pointers

- The result of converting a pointer to an integer or vice versa (C90 6.3.4, C99 and C11 6.3.2.3).

  A cast from pointer to integer discards most-significant bits if the pointer representation is larger than the integer type, sign-extends2 if the pointer representation is smaller than the integer type, otherwise the bits are unchanged.

  A cast from integer to pointer discards most-significant bits if the pointer representation is smaller than the integer type, extends according to the signedness of the integer type if the pointer representation is larger than the integer type, otherwise the bits are unchanged.

  When casting from pointer to integer and back again, the resulting pointer must reference the same object as the original pointer, otherwise the behavior is undefined. That is, one may not use integer arithmetic to avoid the undefined behavior of pointer arithmetic as proscribed in C99 and C11 6.5.6/8.

- The size of the result of subtracting two pointers to elements of the same array (C90 6.3.6, C99 and C11 6.5.6).

  The value is as specified in the standard and the type is determined by the ABI.

#### Footnotes

### (2)

Future versions of GCC may zero-extend, or use a target-defined `ptr_extend` pattern. Do not rely on sign extension.