Using flat arrays as 2D arrays

/* create 2D array with dimensions determined at runtime */
double *matrix = malloc(width * height * sizeof(double));

/* initialise it (for the sake of illustration we want 1.0 on the diagonal) */
int x, y;
for (y = 0; y < height; y++)
{
    for (x = 0; x < width; x++)
    {
        if (x == y)
            matrix[y * width + x] = 1.0;
        else
            matrix[y * width + x] = 0.0;
    }
}

/* pass it to a subroutine */
 manipulate_matrix(matrix, width, height);

/* do something with the matrix, e.g. scale by 2 */
void manipulate_matrix(double *matrix, int width, int height)
{
    int x, y;

    for (y = 0; y < height; y++)
    {
        for (x = 0; x < width; x++) 
        {
            matrix[y * width + x] *= 2.0;
        }
    }
}