Excess elements in scalar initilizer?

Question

#include <cs50.h>
#include <stdio.h>


int example[];
int main(void)
{
    int example = {1,2,3};

    for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
        printf("%i \n", example[i]);

    }
}

Why does this give me the error messages: "Excess elemnts in scalar initializer" at "2" in the array I'm defining, and the error message "Subcripted value is not an array, point or vector" at my "[i]" when trying to print out the Ith integer in the array?

Thanks.

Answer 1

You have to set the size of the array.

I.E:

int example[10];

then you could do this to set the first element of the array to 1:

example[0] = 1;

You can't do this though:

int example[10];
example = {1, 2, 3};

If you've already defined the array the compiler expects you to define which element (I.E: [0]) of the array you want to define (or change), then what you want to assign to that element (I.E: 1).

if you want the size to be set automatically, you could delete this:

int example[];

and write this:

int example[] = {1, 2, 3};

then the compiler knows that you are defining the array, and setting the values of the values of the 3 elements to 1, 2 and 3.

Your code should look something like this:

#include <cs50.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
    int example[] = {1,2,3};

    for (int i = 0; i < sizeof(example) / 4; i++) 
    {
        printf("%d\n", example[i]);
    }
}

Hope this helps! :-)

Answer 2

By doing

int example[];

you are initializing a pointer to an array whose size is not defined. After that in

int example = {1,2,3};

yu are adding values to the pointer which is illogical and has no meaning you can just do it like

int example[3];
int example = {1,2,3};

Hope this helps!