🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DIHM2v.2Av@cadlab.it>, Alex Martelli <martelli@cadlab.it> wrote:
:>IMHO that is not acceptable because in
:>portable code you would not know whether a declaration like
:>	char buffer[length];
:>could fail.
:
:But that would be no different from the present situation!  I.e., in
:portable code you DO not know whether a declaration like
:	char buffer[16384];
:can fail; it depends on whether your current stack has space for
:it, on whether the OS can extend that stack dynamically for you,
:etc, etc.  And, if it does fail, there's no *portable* way to
:catch it, either.

The problem is more complex than this.  Imagine how unorthogonal it is
if you can make automatic array variable sized, but why then can't
an array in a class be made like this ? (Yes I know the reason, I'm
trying to point out the real problem).

eg.
  class Foo {
    const int X;
    int Bar[X];
  public:
    Foo() : X(10) { /* Array is size ten in here */ };
  };

I'm all for nifty features, but not at the expense of orthogonality.  You
then end up with nasty kludges.

There is *no* prior art for this.

:>You can get the effect you want by using an auto_ptr and heap allocation,
:
:auto_ptr does not handle builtin arrays, so how could it ever help here?
:If you new[] some memory, you cannot use the resulting pointer to an
:auto_ptr nor any other standards-supplied class -- you have to use a
:bare pointer, or roll-your-own -- in which latter case the following
:idea appears much more promising:
:

Why is there no auto_array_ptr in the DWP ? Is it an omission or a mistake ?

Regards,
	Rohan
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