Weird behavior when a 3D array is initialized inside a 2D array

[AGraber]

Is this a BUG REPORT, FEATURE REQUEST or QUESTION?:

• Bug Report
• Feature Request
• Question

What happened:
The following code compiled with no error or warning whatsoever, and compiles to a rather strange result which gets demostrated below:

static const FCNPC_IdleAnims[][] =
{
    {"PED", "FLEE_LKAROUND_01"},
    {"PED", "DAM_ARML_FRMFT"},
    {"PED", "DAM_ARMR_FRMFT"},
    {"FLOWERS", "FLOWER_HIT"},
    {"KISSING", "GF_CARARGUE_02"}
};

main()
{
    printf("%s, %s", FCNPC_IdleAnims[3][0], FCNPC_IdleAnims[3][8]);
    return 1;
}

output:

FLOWERS, FLOWER_HIT

What you expected to happen:
Not compile at all and throw an error about array dimensions

How to reproduce it (as minimally and precisely as possible):
Compile the code above and run it

Anything else we need to know?:
Shoutout to Riddick#6416 (Riddick94 at SA-MP Forums) for discovering this.

Environment:

• Operating System
  Windows 10
• Compiler version
  Tested on 3.10.4, 3.10.7 and 3.10.8
• How are you invoking the compiler? Pawno, Sublime, vscode, sampctl or command-line?
  sampctl
• If using sampctl, the version number
  1.8.19

[pawnoholic]

Duplicate #137

[YashasSamaga]

@pawnoholic It isn't a duplicate. This issue should be triggering an error because a 3D array initializer cannot be used to initialize a 2D array. The issue you refered to about the compiler compressing arrays.

[YashasSamaga]

The bug can be generalized as follows:

static const arr[] = {"Asdsad"};
static const arr[][] = {{"Asdsad"}};
.
.
.

An error should be triggered for those cases. The compiler counts the braces processed to keep track of the dimensions processed. When it encounters a string literal, it does not see a brace and hence wrongly treats it as a variable instead of having realized that a string literal adds an extra dimension which in turn should have triggered an array dimensions mismatch error.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.