Question

I know I can do this in C++:

string s[] = {"hi", "there"};

But is there anyway to delcare an array this way without delcaring string s[]?

e.g.

void foo(string[] strArray){
  // some code
}

string s[] = {"hi", "there"}; // Works
foo(s); // Works

foo(new string[]{"hi", "there"}); // Doesn't work

Answer 1

In C++11 you can. A note beforehand: Don’t new the array, there’s no need for that.

First, string[] strArray is a syntax error, that should either be string* strArray or string strArray[]. And I assume that it’s just for the sake of the example that you don’t pass any size parameter.

#include <string>

void foo(std::string* strArray, unsigned size){
  // do stuff...
}

template<class T>
using alias = T;

int main(){
  foo(alias<std::string[]>{"hi", "there"}, 2);
}

Note that it would be better if you didn’t need to pass the array size as an extra parameter, and thankfully there is a way: Templates!

template<unsigned N>
void foo(int const (&arr)[N]){
  // ...
}

Note that this will only match stack arrays, like int x[5] = .... Or temporary ones, created by the use of alias above.

int main(){
  foo(alias<int[]>{1, 2, 3});
}