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copied!<p>The main difference is just the syntax you use to access your one char.</p> <p>By "access" I mean, act upon it using the various operators in the language, most or all of which do different things when applied to a <code>char</code> compared with a <code>char</code> array. This makes it sound as if <code>x</code> and <code>y</code> are almost entirely different. If fact they both "consist of" one char, but that char has been represented in a very different way.</p> <p>The implementation <em>could</em> cause there to be other differences, for example it could align and pad the structure differently according to which one you use. But I doubt it will.</p> <p>An example of the operator differences is that a char is assignable, and an array isn't:</p> <pre><code>SomeStruct a; a.x = 'a'; a.y[0] = 'a'; SomeStruct b; b.x = a.x; // OK b.y = a.y; // not OK b.y[0] = a.y[0]; // OK </code></pre> <p>But the fact that <code>y</code> isn't assignable doesn't stop <code>SomeStruct</code> being assignable:</p> <pre><code>b = a; // OK </code></pre> <p>All this is regardless of the type, <code>char</code> or not. An object of a type, and an array of that type with size 1, are pretty much the same in terms of what's in memory.</p> <p>As an aside, there is a context in which it makes a big difference which you "use" out of <code>char</code> and <code>char[1]</code>, and which sometimes helps confuse people into thinking that arrays are really pointers. Not your example, but as a function parameter:</p> <pre><code>void foo(char c); // a function which takes a char as a parameter void bar(char c[1]); // a function which takes a char* as a parameter void baz(char c[12]); // also a function which takes a char* as a parameter </code></pre> <p>The numbers provided in the declarations of <code>bar</code> and <code>baz</code> are completely ignored by the C++ language. Apparently someone at some point felt that it would be useful to programmers as a form of documentation, indicating that the function <code>baz</code> is expecting its pointer argument to point to the first element of an array of 12 char.</p> <p>In bar and baz, <code>c</code> never has array type - it looks like an array type, but it isn't, it's just a fancy special-case syntax with the same meaning as <code>char *c</code>. Which is why I put the quotation marks on "use" - you aren't really using <code>char[1]</code> at all, it just looks like it.</p>

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