Beyond this, &ptr and &arr are different types! The signature for bogus(arr, &arr) is something like void bogus(const char* arg1, const char (*ar

Beyond this, &ptr and &arr are different types! The signature for bogus(arr, &arr) is something like void bogus(const char* arg1, const char (*arg2)[12]) While they do point to the same data, it's pretty rare to actually want to declare a const char (*)[N] as a function argument - template magic code excepted, you don't gain much over a char * and it's not the same as a char** The two lines do different things, so of course they will generate different code. What do you know, the one that actually lets you do useful things is a few bytes longer.