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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 ).
Cover of the C99 standards document. C99 (previously C9X, formally ISO/IEC 9899:1999) is a past version of the C programming language open standard. [1] It extends the previous version with new features for the language and the standard library, and helps implementations make better use of available computer hardware, such as IEEE 754-1985 floating-point arithmetic, and compiler technology. [2]
C99 standardised variable-length arrays (VLAs) within block scope. Such array variables are allocated based on the value of an integer value at runtime upon entry to a block, and are deallocated at the end of the block. [3] As of C11 this feature is no longer required to be implemented by the compiler.
Array types in C are traditionally of a fixed, static size specified at compile time. The more recent C99 standard also allows a form of variable-length arrays. However, it is also possible to allocate a block of memory (of arbitrary size) at run-time, using the standard library's malloc function, and treat it as an array.
C99 and C11 added several additional features to C that have not been incorporated into standard C++ as of C++20, such as complex numbers, variable length arrays (complex numbers and variable length arrays are designated as optional extensions in C11), flexible array members, the restrict keyword, array parameter qualifiers, and compound literals.
For every type T, except void and function types, there exist the types "array of N elements of type T". An array is a collection of values, all of the same type, stored contiguously in memory. An array of size N is indexed by integers from 0 up to and including N−1. Here is a brief example:
For static-duration and automatic-duration variables, the size of the allocation must be compile-time constant (except for the case of variable-length automatic arrays [5]). If the required size is not known until run-time (for example, if data of arbitrary size is being read from the user or from a disk file), then using fixed-size data ...
The stack is often used to store variables of fixed length local to the currently active functions. Programmers may further choose to explicitly use the stack to store local data of variable length. If a region of memory lies on the thread's stack, that memory is said to have been allocated on the stack, i.e. stack-based memory allocation (SBMA).