C Language Structs Flexible Array Members
Example
C99
Type Declaration
A structure with at least one member may additionally contain a single array member of unspecified length at the end of the structure. This is called a flexible array member:
struct ex1
{
size_t foo;
int flex[];
};
struct ex2_header
{
int foo;
char bar;
};
struct ex2
{
struct ex2_header hdr;
int flex[];
};
/* Merged ex2_header and ex2 structures. */
struct ex3
{
int foo;
char bar;
int flex[];
};
Effects on Size and Padding
A flexible array member is treated as having no size when calculating the size of a structure, though padding between that member and the previous member of the structure may still exist:
/* Prints "8,8" on my machine, so there is no padding. */
printf("%zu,%zu\n", sizeof(size_t), sizeof(struct ex1));
/* Also prints "8,8" on my machine, so there is no padding in the ex2 structure itself. */
printf("%zu,%zu\n", sizeof(struct ex2_header), sizeof(struct ex2));
/* Prints "5,8" on my machine, so there are 3 bytes of padding. */
printf("%zu,%zu\n", sizeof(int) + sizeof(char), sizeof(struct ex3));
The flexible array member is considered to have an incomplete array type, so its size cannot be calculated using sizeof.
Usage
You can declare and initialize an object with a structure type containing a flexible array member, but you must not attempt to initialize the flexible array member since it is treated as if it does not exist. It is forbidden to try to do this, and compile errors will result.
Similarly, you should not attempt to assign a value to any element of a flexible array member when declaring a structure in this way since there may not be enough padding at the end of the structure to allow for any objects required by the flexible array member. The compiler will not necessarily prevent you from doing this, however, so this can lead to undefined behavior.
/* invalid: cannot initialize flexible array member */
struct ex1 e1 = {1, {2, 3}};
/* invalid: hdr={foo=1, bar=2} OK, but cannot initialize flexible array member */
struct ex2 e2 = {{1, 2}, {3}};
/* valid: initialize foo=1, bar=2 members */
struct ex3 e3 = {1, 2};
e1.flex[0] = 3; /* undefined behavior, in my case */
e3.flex[0] = 2; /* undefined behavior again */
e2.flex[0] = e3.flex[0]; /* undefined behavior */
You may instead choose to use malloc, calloc, or realloc to allocate the structure with extra storage and later free it, which allows you to use the flexible array member as you wish:
/* valid: allocate an object of structure type `ex1` along with an array of 2 ints */
struct ex1 *pe1 = malloc(sizeof(*pe1) + 2 * sizeof(pe1->flex[0]));
/* valid: allocate an object of structure type ex2 along with an array of 4 ints */
struct ex2 *pe2 = malloc(sizeof(struct ex2) + sizeof(int[4]));
/* valid: allocate 5 structure type ex3 objects along with an array of 3 ints per object */
struct ex3 *pe3 = malloc(5 * (sizeof(*pe3) + sizeof(int[3])));
pe1->flex[0] = 3; /* valid */
pe3[0]->flex[0] = pe1->flex[0]; /* valid */
C99
The 'struct hack'
Flexible array members did not exist prior to C99 and are treated as errors. A common workaround is to declare an array of length 1, a technique called the 'struct hack':
struct ex1
{
size_t foo;
int flex[1];
};
This will affect the size of the structure, however, unlike a true flexible array member:
/* Prints "8,4,16" on my machine, signifying that there are 4 bytes of padding. */
printf("%d,%d,%d\n", (int)sizeof(size_t), (int)sizeof(int[1]), (int)sizeof(struct ex1));
To use the flex member as a flexible array member, you'd allocate it with malloc as shown above, except that sizeof(*pe1) (or the equivalent sizeof(struct ex1)) would be replaced with offsetof(struct ex1, flex) or the longer, type-agnostic expression sizeof(*pe1)-sizeof(pe1->flex). Alternatively, you might subtract 1 from the desired length of the "flexible" array since it's already included in the structure size, assuming the desired length is greater than 0. The same logic may be applied to the other usage examples.
Compatibility
If compatibility with compilers that do not support flexible array members is desired, you may use a macro defined like FLEXMEMB_SIZE below:
#if __STDC_VERSION__ < 199901L
#define FLEXMEMB_SIZE 1
#else
#define FLEXMEMB_SIZE /* nothing */
#endif
struct ex1
{
size_t foo;
int flex[FLEXMEMB_SIZE];
};
When allocating objects, you should use the offsetof(struct ex1, flex) form to refer to the structure size (excluding the flexible array member) since it is the only expression that will remain consistent between compilers that support flexible array members and compilers that do not:
struct ex1 *pe10 = malloc(offsetof(struct ex1, flex) + n * sizeof(pe10->flex[0]));
The alternative is to use the preprocessor to conditionally subtract 1 from the specified length. Due to the increased potential for inconsistency and general human error in this form, I moved the logic into a separate function:
struct ex1 *ex1_alloc(size_t n)
{
struct ex1 tmp;
#if __STDC_VERSION__ < 199901L
if (n != 0)
n--;
#endif
return malloc(sizeof(tmp) + n * sizeof(tmp.flex[0]));
}
...
/* allocate an ex1 object with "flex" array of length 3 */
struct ex1 *pe1 = ex1_alloc(3);
