7.3.4 Pointer Arithmetic Instead of Integers

Using pointer arithmetic usually works better than integers because pointer arithmetic is independent of the data model, whereas integers might not be. Also, you can usually simplify your code by using pointer arithmetic. Consider the following example:

int *end;
int *p;
p = malloc(4 * NUM_ELEMENTS);
end = (int *)((unsigned int)p + 4 * NUM_ELEMENTS);

%
warning: conversion of pointer loses bits

The modified version is:

int *end;
int *p;
p = malloc(sizeof (*p) * NUM_ELEMENTS);
end = p + NUM_ELEMENTS;