In C, does a cast from char* to void* do anything?

Question

Please have a look at the below mentioned code snippet and tell me the difference?

int main()
{
struct sockaddr_in serv_addr, cli_addr;
/* Initialize socket structure */
    bzero((char *) &serv_addr, sizeof(serv_addr));
}

Now, what if i do something similar without typecasting (char *), then also i feel it will do the same thing? Can someone clarify?

/* Initialize socket structure */
bzero( &serv_addr, sizeof(serv_addr));

Answer 1

Since the first parameter is void *, you only need to cast in C++.

In C this is not necessary, as a void * was introduced¹ precisely so that you wouldn't need to cast it to or from other object² pointers. (Similarly with malloc() and other functions that deal with void *s)

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1. In C89.
2. Any non-function pointer.

Answer 2

The cast is not needed, since bzero() accepts void* as the first argument and AnyType* can be implicitly converted to void*.