Pass Multidimensional Arrays to a Function

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

Example 3: Pass two-dimensional arrays

#include <stdio.h>
void displayNumbers(int num[2][2]);

int main() {
  int num[2][2];
  printf("Enter 4 numbers:\n");
  for (int i = 0; i < 2; ++i) {
    for (int j = 0; j < 2; ++j) {
      scanf("%d", &num[i][j]);
    }
  }

  // pass multi-dimensional array to a function
  displayNumbers(num);

  return 0;
}

void displayNumbers(int num[2][2]) {
  printf("Displaying:\n");
  for (int i = 0; i < 2; ++i) {
    for (int j = 0; j < 2; ++j) {
      printf("%d\n", num[i][j]);
    }
  }
}

Output

Enter 4 numbers:
2
3
4
5
Displaying:
2
3
4
5

Notice the parameter int num[2][2] in the function prototype and function definition:

// function prototype
void displayNumbers(int num[2][2]);

This signifies that the function takes a two-dimensional array as an argument. We can also pass arrays with more than 2 dimensions as a function argument.

When passing two-dimensional arrays, it is not mandatory to specify the number of rows in the array. However, the number of columns should always be specified.

For example,

void displayNumbers(int num[][2]) {
  // code
}