Question

I need to initialize a static array. Not all of the values are sequential.

Something like this works fine for a sequential array:

class Foo {

  public:

  static const char * name[];

}

const char * Foo::name[] = { "Sun", "Moon" };

How can I assign values at arbitrary positions in the array? I need to do something like this (pseudocode):

const char * Foo::name[] = { 67: "Sun", 68: "Moon" };

The array will never be bigger than 255; the indices come from byte values.

---

I found part of a thread where someone gives an example of something similar to what I want, but I couldn’t get anything like this to work.

type array[SIZE] = {[SIZE-4]=1, 2, 3, 4};

Answer 1

Here’s one old-school approach:

class NameArray {
  public:
    NameArray()
    {
      array[67] = "Sun";
      array[68] = "Moon";
    }

    const char *operator[](size_t index) const
    {
      assert(index<256);
      return array[index];
    }


  private:
    const char * array[256];
};

class Foo {
  public:
    static NameArray name;
};

NameArray Foo::name;

By wrapping the array in a class, you can make sure it gets constructed with the values that you want. You can also do bounds checking.