Question

Why can’t I use the new operator like this:

char* p;

p = new char('a')[3];

delete[] p;

Compiler says:

error C2143: syntax error : missing ';' before '['
error C3409: empty attribute block is not allowed
error C2143: syntax error : missing ']' before 'constant'

Answer 1

In C++11, you can initialize a dynamically allocated aggregate through the new uniform initialization:

p = new char[3] {'a', 'a', 'a'};

In C++98, you cannot specify an initializer list for dynamically-allocated aggregates.
All you can do is to first allocate the array, then fill it with a value:

p = new char[3];
std::fill(p, p + 3, 'a');