Strange values while initializing array using designated initializers

Question

When I initialize the array below all the output looks ok except for values[3]. For some reason values[3] initialized as values[0]+values[5]

Answer 1

This is the first time that I have seen something initialized that way, but I figured that the behavior you are seeing had to do with accessing a piece of the array that has not yet been initialized. So I built it using GCC 4.6.3 on a 32-bit Ubuntu 12.04 system. In my environment, I got different results than you.

gcc file.c -o file

./file
values[0] = 197
values[1] = 0
values[2] = -100
values[3] = 197
values[4] = 0
values[5] = 350
values[6] = 0
values[7] = 0
values[8] = 0
values[9] = 35


objdump -d file > file.asm

cat file.asm     (relevant portion posted below)

080483e4 
:
 80483e4:   55                      push   %ebp
 80483e5:   89 e5                   mov    %esp,%ebp
 80483e7:   57                      push   %edi
 80483e8:   53                      push   %ebx
 80483e9:   83 e4 f0                and    $0xfffffff0,%esp
 80483ec:   83 ec 40                sub    $0x40,%esp
 80483ef:   8d 5c 24 14             lea    0x14(%esp),%ebx
 80483f3:   b8 00 00 00 00          mov    $0x0,%eax
 80483f8:   ba 0a 00 00 00          mov    $0xa,%edx
 80483fd:   89 df                   mov    %ebx,%edi
 80483ff:   89 d1                   mov    %edx,%ecx
 8048401:   f3 ab                   rep stos %eax,%es:(%edi)   <=====
 8048403:   c7 44 24 14 c5 00 00    movl   $0xc5,0x14(%esp)
 804840a:   00 
 804840b:   c7 44 24 1c 9c ff ff    movl   $0xffffff9c,0x1c(%esp)
 8048412:   ff
 8048413:   8b 54 24 14             mov    0x14(%esp),%edx
 8048417:   8b 44 24 28             mov    0x28(%esp),%eax
 804841b:   01 d0                   add    %edx,%eax
 804841d:   89 44 24 20             mov    %eax,0x20(%esp)
 8048421:   c7 44 24 28 5e 01 00    movl   $0x15e,0x28(%esp)
 8048428:   00 
 8048429:   8b 4c 24 28             mov    0x28(%esp),%ecx
 804842d:   ba 67 66 66 66          mov    $0x66666667,%edx
 8048432:   89 c8                   mov    %ecx,%eax
 8048434:   f7 ea                   imul   %edx
 8048436:   c1 fa 02                sar    $0x2,%edx
 8048439:   89 c8                   mov    %ecx,%eax
 804843b:   c1 f8 1f                sar    $0x1f,%eax

I've identified a key line in the above output that I think marks the difference between what yours generated and what mine generated (marked with <======). Before specific array elements are initialized with the values you specified, mine is zeroing the contents of the array. The specific initialization of array elements occurs after this.

Given the above behavior, I do not think that it is unreasonable to hypothesize that yours did not zero the array contents prior to initializing specific elements of the array. As to why the difference in behavior? I can only speculate; but my first guess is that we are using two different compiler versions.

Hope this helps.