Don wrote:
bearophile wrote:
Do you see a problem here?
import std.stdio: writeln;
int[24] arr = [10,2,15,15,14,12,3,7,13,5,9,9,7,9,9,9,11,15,1,1,12,5,14];
void main() {
writeln(arr);
}
This code compiles and runs fine, I think according to the D specs,
but it can hide a bug.
(Don has split my bug report to avoid fixing the whole problem. I
don't think mine is an enhancement request as Don writes, I think it's
a bug in the D specs.)
I share your opinion that it's a poor design, but it's not a bug. It's
explicitly supported in the spec.
The idea is that for long arrays, often only the start of it needs
initialization to anything but 0.
By contrast, a literal with too many items is clearly a bug (it's an
array bounds error). Especially when the compiler crashes.
Yes, and thanks for your patch to fix it!
A third case is when you really want to define a static array using a
literal that has less items than the static array. I think this is an
uncommon case, what are the real use cases of this? But we might want
to support it anyway. Two examples:
int[4] datas = [1, 2];
int[3][3] mat = [[1,2,3], [4,5,6]];
In D there is another way to write that (using the associative array
syntax! this smells bad):
int[4] datas = [0:1, 1:2];
I do not know why this syntax is supported,
It's so if you only need a few items in a large array initialized. C99 supports
it as well.
but it's in the spec. Note
that you can even write:
int [4] datas = [1:2, 3, 0:1];
That syntax explicitly allows members to remain uninitialized.
(BTW, it's much, much older than associative array syntax).
