Question

What is the benefit of declaring a C structure member as in array of size 1 instead of a pointer :

struct {
  a_struct_t a_member[1];
  ...
}b_struct;

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

So I think it’s been stated that the main difference between pointers and arrays is that you have to allocate memory for pointers.

The tricky part about your question is that even as you allocate space for your struct, if your struct contains a pointer you have to allocate a SECOND time for the pointer, but the pointer itself would be allocated as part of the struct’s allocaiton.

If your struct contained an array of 1 you would not have to allocate any additional memory, it would be stored in the struct (which you still have to allocate).