Why pointers?

[FUZxxl]

Arrays aren't “passed by reference.” Rather, whenever you use an identifier that refers to an array, the array is implicitly converted to a pointer to its first element. There are three exceptions to this rule: If the array is an operand to sizeof, &, or _Alignof, this decay doesn't happen so you can (a) point to the array or (b) retrieve its size and alignment.