Array type is used as a reference type argument in the function call

Question

I am using PRQA QA C++ as source code analyzer.

This is the first code I analyzed :

    void test1(int * var);

    void example1()
    {
        int var1[10];

        test1(var1);
    }

QA C++ told me

Array type is used as a pointer type argument in the function call.

So, I tried this following example (as it suggested) :

    void test2(int (&var)[10]);

    void example2()
    {
        int var2[10];

        test2(var2);
    }

This time, it told me :

Array type is used as a reference type argument in the function call.

Is there a better solution to use an array parameter ?

Answer 1

The original warning is fine, the second warning is also true.

This is due to arrays decaying to pointers, so var1 , originally an array of integers can be used in an expression requiring a pointer.

If you really want to remove these, there are several options:

std::array<int, 10> var1;
test1(var1.data());

Of better:

void test2(std::array<int, 10>& var);

void example2()
{
    std::array<int, 10> var2;

    test2(var2);
}

Then the second option fixes the size of the array. If it needs to be variable but fixed at compile time, use a template, otherwise use a std::vector instead of a C-style array.