On: The CompCert C Compiler

[skissane]

> Because you can't do that and still call the resulting language C

You could if you introduced a new type of "safe array".

e.g.

int[] is a traditional C array which decays to int*

int[@] is a "safe C array" which is syntactic sugar for struct { size_t __count; int* __items; }, and as such can't decay

int[] and int[@] would not be directly interoperable, except by converting both to int* – maybe casting an int[@] to int* would automatically extract the __items member.

(The [@] syntax was chosen at random, if you don't like it, pick something else.)

[pif → skissane]

You can define such a struct yourself. You do not need to modify the language.

[adrianN → pif]

By having it defined at the language level you increase the chances that your dependencies use the same struct.

[SpaghettiCthulu → pif]

But your struct cannot provide an indexing operator (right?)

[orf → pif]

So why do we have so many issues with arrays then, since everyone can individually fix it themselves? Hmm…