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In computer programming, a variable-length array (VLA), also called variable-sized or runtime-sized, is an array data structure whose length is determined at runtime, instead of at compile time. [1] In the language C , the VLA is said to have a variably modified data type that depends on a value (see Dependent type ).
sizeof can be used to determine the number of elements in an array, by dividing the size of the entire array by the size of a single element. This should be used with caution; When passing an array to another function, it will "decay" to a pointer type. At this point, sizeof will return the size of the pointer, not the total size of the array.
In C and C++ arrays do not support the size function, so programmers often have to declare separate variable to hold the size, and pass it to procedures as a separate parameter. Elements of a newly created array may have undefined values (as in C), or may be defined to have a specific "default" value such as 0 or a null pointer (as in Java).
The sizeof operator on such a struct gives the size of the structure as if the flexible array member were empty. This may include padding added to accommodate the flexible member; the compiler is also free to re-use such padding as part of the array itself.
In addition to support for vectorized arithmetic and relational operations, these languages also vectorize common mathematical functions such as sine. For example, if x is an array, then y = sin (x) will result in an array y whose elements are sine of the corresponding elements of the array x. Vectorized index operations are also supported.
size_t is an unsigned integer type used to represent the size of any object (including arrays) in the particular implementation. The operator sizeof yields a value of the type size_t . The maximum size of size_t is provided via SIZE_MAX , a macro constant which is defined in the < stdint.h > header ( cstdint header in C++).
Some array data structures do not reallocate storage, but do store a count of the number of elements of the array in use, called the count or size. This effectively makes the array a dynamic array with a fixed maximum size or capacity; Pascal strings are examples of this.
Elements can be removed from the end of a dynamic array in constant time, as no resizing is required. The number of elements used by the dynamic array contents is its logical size or size, while the size of the underlying array is called the dynamic array's capacity or physical size, which is the maximum possible size without relocating data. [2]