Re: Quirk in new allocations

From:
Victor Bazarov <v.bazarov@comcast.invalid>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:33:10 -0400
Message-ID:
<kpd304$7q5$1@dont-email.me>
On 6/13/2013 2:12 PM, mooingpsychoduck@gmail.com wrote:

Someone online (http://stackoverflow.com/q/17091991/845092) was trying to initialize a variable like so:

int (**a)[10] = new [10][20][30];


A type is missing somewhere in the right-hand side of that assignment sign.

And (regardless of what he _actually_ wanted), I quickly discovered

that without a typedef I could initialize "a" to (a dynamic pointer to a
(pointer to (an array of ten integers))), but without a typedef I could
NOT initialize "a" to (a dynamic array of 30 (pointers to (an array of
ten integers))). Succinctly:

     //this line compiles fine
     int (**a)[10] = new (int (*)[10]);
     //error: array bound forbidden after parenthesized type-id
     int (**a)[10] = new (int (*)[10])[30];

Is there a trick to this I haven't thought of, or is it actually

impossible to do this without a typedef? One can easily use typedefs, or
type deduction, or any number of other tricks as a workaround, but I was
surprised that I could not do this as a "basic" expression.

(Please don't speculate new expressions that you think might work

without testing them in a compiler first. My friends and I have already
tested many permutations. Random guesses are not going to be helpful here.)

Were you trying to allocate a multidimensional array in one call to
'new'? I don't think it's possible. You can allocate 6000 integers in
one call and probably use the placement new to "map" it to an array of
30 arrays of 20 arrays of 10 integers. But it's not the same thing, I
suppose.

Perhaps something like this:

    int (*p)[10][20] = new (std::nothrow) (int(*)[10][20])[30];

V
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