c - memcpy for multidimensional array

Question

Is there a way we can copy every element from one multidimensional array to another multidimensional array by just doing one memcpy operation?

int array1[4][4][4][4];
int array2[4][4][4][4];
int main()
{
    memset(&array1,1,sizeof(array1));
    memset(&array2,0,sizeof(array2));
    printf_all("value in array2 %d 
",array2[1][1][1][1]);
    memcpy(&array2,&array1,sizeof(array2));
    printf("memcopied in array2 from array1 
");
    printf("value in array2 %d 
",array2[1][1][1][1]); //not printing 1
}

Answer 1

Your code is correct. You should not expect the output to show you a value of 1. You should expect it to show you a value of 16843009, assuming a 4 byte int.

The reason is: you are filling array1 with bytes of value 1, not with ints of value 1. i.e. binary 00000001000000010000000100000001 (0x01010101) is being filled into all the int elements with your memset operation.

So regardless of the size of int on your machine (unless it's a single byte!) you should not expect to see the value 1.

I hope this helps.