#define ARRAYSIZE vs inline arraysize(...)

[RedSon]

CERT secure coding practices requires that the secure programmer prefer inline or static functions to function-like macros. So my question is: How do you convert

#define ARRAYSIZE(a) sizeof(a)/sizeof(a[0]) to an inline function?

would this work?

inline int arraysize (void* a) { return (sizeof(*a)/sizeof(*a[0])); }

[Banfa]

CERT secure coding practices requires that the secure programmer prefer inline or static functions to function-like macros. So my question is: How do you convert

#define ARRAYSIZE(a) sizeof(a)/sizeof(a[0]) to an inline function?

would this work?

inline int arraysize (void* a) { return (sizeof(*a)/sizeof(*a[0])); }

No that would not work.

It is impossible to convert the ARRAYSIZE macro to a function because any function you write will have a point as an argument(like yours) not an array.

Try compiling your function, it wont.

Anyway the whole point here is that the the sizeof operator has to have visibility of the actual array and the only way to achieve that is to have thesizeof operator in the code, a function, even an inline one, just doesn't cut it.

[donbock]

Are you using C or C++? I don't program in C++, so don't take my word for it; but it occurs to me that it just might maybe be conceivable to create an arraysize method for a data type. I don't know what you can do in C++ so that means I also don't know what you can't do.
I defer to the experienced C++ programmers on this forum.

[RedSon]

No that would not work.

It is impossible to convert the ARRAYSIZE macro to a function because any function you write will have a point as an argument(like yours) not an array.

Try compiling your function, it wont.

Anyway the whole point here is that the the sizeof operator has to have visibility of the actual array and the only way to achieve that is to have thesizeof operator in the code, a function, even an inline one, just doesn't cut it.

Right, it won't. But I was looking at some other posts about this and someone came up with an idea like this...

template <typename T, unsigned int i> inline unsigned int arraysize(T (&a)[i]){ return sizeof a / sizeof a[0]; }

The problem here is I am trying to check the array size of a pointer that points to the array. There are so many levels of indirection that templating won't work.

But in any event I found that there is a "numArgs" field in this info struct, so that solves my problem without the need for a sizeof method.