accessing the 2-d array of integer and character arrays

When you supply a pointer it will use the std::ostream& operator<<( const void* value ); overload and output the address pointed at by value.

The difference is that std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, const char* s) is a special case and it will dereference s and output the chars until a \0 is encountered. As long as no \0 is encountered, it’ll step s forward.