In-Reply-To: <d7iigr$7tn$1@sea.gmane.org> technews@kangaroologic.com (Jonathan Turkanis) wrote (abridged):
boost::array is just supposed to give built-in arrays a container interface. Built-in arrays never have size 0, so I don't see why boost::arrays should.
Surely built-in arrays can have size 0? For example: int n = 0; int *array = new int[n]; In my experience it is important to handle zero edge-cases correctly and uniformly. I have been reading: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2003/n1479.html and I don't understand the reasoning there. Personally I'd rather change the language so that: const int n = 0; int array[n]; was acceptable too, making the static case consistent with the dynamic case and both consistent with n>0. Even if this glitch is not fixed (because it requires a language change), I'd rather an array library not perpetuate the problem. For example: array<T,0> a; could allocate a single byte of memory with alignment suitable for T. At worst, sizeof(T) bytes could be allocated, but no T should be constructed. -- Dave Harris, Nottingham, UK.