Initializing an array of pointers to structs in C++ - c++

Question

Initializing an array of pointers to structs in C can be done using compound literals.
typedef struct {
int a;
int b;
} s;
In C:
s *ptrArray[] = {
&(s){
.a = 1,
.b = 2
},
&(s){
.a = 4,
.b = 5
}
};
How can this be done in C++?
I have also seen the difference in initializing structs in C++ not using compound statements:
s s1 = { a: 7, b: 8 };

Answer 1

First - initializing anything to the address of a temporary value seems extremely fishy, in C as well. Are you sure that's valid? Hmmm. Anyway, a C++ compiler will really not let you do that.
As for the your designated (named-field) initialization C++ line - it's actually non-standard, it's a GNU C++ extension, and you can't rely on it.
You could do this:
struct s { int a, b; };
int main() {
s data[] = { { 1, 2 }, { 4, 5 } };
// instead of ptrArray[i], use &(data[i])
}
This compiles just fine. But - a more C++'ish version of this code would be:
#include <array>
struct s { int a, b; };
int main() {
std::array<s, 2> data { s{ 1, 2 }, s{ 4, 5 } };
// instead of ptrArray[i], use &(data[i]),
// or use iterators, or ranged for loops
}
Why would you want to use std::array? Here's one explanation of the benefits. Actually, you could do slightly better and repeat yourself less with:
int main() {
auto data = make_array(s{ 1, 2 }, s{ 4, 5 });
// instead of ptrArray[i], use &(data[i]),
// or use iterators, or ranged for loops
}
The make_array function is taken from here; you also have std::experimental::make_array(), but that's not standardized yet.
If you want to add or remove elements from data at run-time, you might switch to using std::vector:
#include <vector>
struct s { int a, b; };
int main() {
std::vector<s> data { s{ 1, 2 }, s{ 4, 5 } };
// instead of ptrArray[i], use &(data[i]),
// or use iterators, or ranged for loops
}

Answer 2

The reason your initialize was failing is you were attempting to initialize the array of pointers to struct to the address of numeric literal constants. The same as:
#define A 5
int b = &A; /* NOT HAPPENING */
(you can't take the address of 5)
You can solve your problem by simply initializing an array of s instead of an array of pointers to s, e.g.:
s ptrarr[] = { {1, 2}, {4, 5} };
With that change, your array will initialize fine, e.g.
#include <iostream>
typedef struct {
int a;
int b;
} s;
int main (void) {
s ptrarr[] = { {1, 2}, {4, 5} };
int cnt = 0;
for (auto& i : ptrarr)
std::cout << "ptrarr[" << cnt++ << "] : " << i.a << ", " << i.b << "\n";
}
Example Use/Output
$ ./bin/ptrarrystruct
ptrarr[0] : 1, 2
ptrarr[1] : 4, 5