Array index out of bound in C

Question

Why does C differentiates in case of array index out of bound

#include 
int main()
{
    int a[10];
    a[3]=4;
    a[11]=3;//doe         


        

Answer 1

The segfault is not an intended action of your C program that would tell you that an index is out of bounds. Rather, it is an unintended consequence of undefined behavior.

In C and C++, if you declare an array like

type name[size];

You are only allowed to access elements with indexes from 0 up to size-1. Anything outside of that range causes undefined behavior. If the index was near the range, most probably you read your own program's memory. If the index was largely out of range, most probably your program will be killed by the operating system. But you can't know, anything can happen.

Why does C allow that? Well, the basic gist of C and C++ is to not provide features if they cost performance. C and C++ has been used for ages for highly performance critical systems. C has been used as a implementation language for kernels and programs where access out of array bounds can be useful to get fast access to objects that lie adjacent in memory. Having the compiler forbid this would be for naught.

Why doesn't it warn about that? Well, you can put warning levels high and hope for the compiler's mercy. This is called quality of implementation (QoI). If some compiler uses open behavior (like, undefined behavior) to do something good, it has a good quality of implementation in that regard.

[js@HOST2 cpp]$ gcc -Wall -O2 main.c
main.c: In function 'main':
main.c:3: warning: array subscript is above array bounds
[js@HOST2 cpp]$

If it instead would format your hard disk upon seeing the array accessed out of bounds - which would be legal for it - the quality of implementation would be rather bad. I enjoyed to read about that stuff in the ANSI C Rationale document.