Question

int width = 2560;
int height = 1440;
int frameBuffer[width*height];
for (int i = 0; i < width*height; ++i)
    frameBuffer[i]=i;

This code locks the process up, even thou I am well within the bounds of 32 bit integers and I have plenty of memory to allocate the array?

BTW Ironic, isn’t it? Asking about a stack overflow error on a site called stackoverflow 🙂

Answer 1

You are probably exceeding the available stack space, causing an overflow. It is not a good idea to have such big arrays on the stack.

Instead of using the non-standard VLA’s (variable-length arrays), you can allocate the buffer yourself:

size_t width = 2560;
size_t height = 1440;
int *frameBuffer = new int[width * height];

for (size_t i = 0; i < width * height; ++i)
    frameBuffer[i] = i;

...
delete[] frameBuffer;

Also note the usage of size_t rather than int. You should stick with size_t when it comes to allocation sizes, since an int is not always guaranteed to be capable of holding a size large enough.