Re: Maximum size that an array can hold in C++

From:
James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Tue, 9 Jun 2009 05:23:46 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<3c251de5-b31a-432f-a724-d7fd52d5e6da@z14g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>
On Jun 8, 6:53 pm, Juha Nieminen <nos...@thanks.invalid> wrote:

Neelesh wrote:

Specifically, the C++ standard doesnot say anything about
"maximum size" that an array variable can have.


  Then how does the standard define "size_t"?


As an implementation defined unsigned integral type, large
enough to represent the number of bytes in any single object
(including objects of array size). std::numeric_limits<
size_t >::max() *is* one factor which places an upper limit on
the maximum size of an array. It is not the only one, however;
other limits (like the amount of memory actually available) may
also apply. (On my Sparc, std::numeric_limits< size_t >::max()
is 18446744073709551615. It's a fairly sure bet that I can't
create an array of that size, given that I've only got a little
more than 100 GB virtual memory configured.)

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