BL> Are you saying that strcpy(names[x], line); will work?? How can it?
BL> names[][] is a two dimensional array. I'll try it...

BL> ... [later]

BL> It *does* work. How?

It works by definition.

BL> It must mean that a 2-dimensional array is really a one-dimensional
BL> array of strings. What happens with a 3-dimensional array? If I had
BL> names[x][y][z] can I put names[x] to address the [y][z] array? and
BL> names[x][y] to address the z string? Whatta great idea!

Yes, all this is true.  By definition.

BL> Another thing I don't quite understand is your use of things like 
BL> char **whatever;

BL> You use it quite a bit.

BL> Does this mean it's a pointer to a pointer to a character? What's

Yes.

BL> the point of that? It's the same size, so what does the extra code 
BL> gain? Why not just use the original pointer?

Well, say you wrote a function, and you want to set a pointer, as such:


/* determine who is the best person */

void brilliant_function(char **p)
{
   static char names[3][20] = { "bob", "rod", "paul");
   
   *p = names[2];
   return;
}

int main(void)
{
    char *n;
    
    brilliant_function(&n);
    printf("the brilliant person is %s\n", n);
    return (0);
}

Well, as you can see, the caller is only declaring a pointer himself. That
pointer is pointing to some random location in memory.  If he were to pass
that pointer directly to the function, then the function would receive a
pointer to a random location in memory, which is of absolutely no use to
anyone.  This way, the function receives the address of where the
"4-byte" pointer ITSELF is stored, so that it can CHANGE the
pointer, so that instead of pointing to a random location, it points to the
name of a brilliant person.  BFN.  Paul. 
@EOT:

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