Why the output is 50?

Question

#include <stdio.h>
#define A 5
#define B 10
/*suppose size of pointer is 4 bytes*/
int main() {

char (*p)[A][B];
printf("%u",sizeof(*p));
return 0;
}
Here comes code but i wonder why won't we multiply A x B x 4 == 5 x 10 x 4 which is 200 but I don't why answer is 50 , please someone explain this..

Answer 1

C types can look ugly and not very obvious some times.

p is a pointer to char[A][B]. Therefor:

sizeof(p) == sizeof a pointer == 4
sizeof(*p) == A * B * sizeof(char) == 50

What you expected is, if you define p like

char *p[A][B];

without parentheses. Now p is a char*[A][B].

Answer 2

Because you aren't getting the size of the pointer when you use the sizeof function, you are getting the size of the char array which is 5x10x1=50 bytes.

If you want to get the size of the pointer, you should use sizeof(p), which will be equal to 8 bytes, not 200.

Because pointers' size doesn't change according to what they're pointing to.