一生一芯 预学习阶段 C语言指针

官方提供的代码如下：

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    // create two arrays we care about
    int ages[] = {23, 43, 12, 89, 2};
    char *names[] = {
        "Alan", "Frank",
        "Mary", "John", "Lisa"
    };

    // safely get the size of ages
    int count = sizeof(ages) / sizeof(int);
    int i = 0;

    // first way using indexing
    for(i = 0; i < count; i++) {
        printf("%s has %d years alive.\n",
                names[i], ages[i]);
    }

    printf("---\n");

    // setup the pointers to the start of the arrays
    int *cur_age = ages;
    char **cur_name = names;

    // second way using pointers
    for(i = 0; i < count; i++) {
        printf("%s is %d years old.\n",
                *(cur_name+i), *(cur_age+i));
    }

    printf("---\n");

    // third way, pointers are just arrays
    for(i = 0; i < count; i++) {
        printf("%s is %d years old again.\n",
                cur_name[i], cur_age[i]);
    }

    printf("---\n");

    // fourth way with pointers in a stupid complex way
    for(cur_name = names, cur_age = ages;
            (cur_age - ages) < count;
            cur_name++, cur_age++)
    {
        printf("%s lived %d years so far.\n",
                *cur_name, *cur_age);
    }

    return 0;
}

第45行： 

for(cur_name = names, cur_age = ages; (cur_age - ages) < count;cur_name++, cur_age++)

for循环的测试部分比较cur_age指针和ages起始位置的距离，为什么可以这样写呢？

指针减法的原理：指针之间的减法运算会返回两个指针之间相差的元素个数，而不是字节数。这个操作之所以有效，是因为它基于指针的类型。例如，如果两个指针都指向 int 类型的数组元素，指针减法的结果是相差的 int 元素的个数，而不是字节数。