C++ cast to array of a smaller size

Question

Here's an interesting question about the various quirks of the C++ language. I have a pair of functions, which are supposed to fill an array of points with the corners of a rectangle. There are two overloads for it: one takes a Point[5], the other takes a Point[4]. The 5-point version refers to a closed polygon, whereas the 4-point version is when you just want the 4 corners, period.

Obviously there's some duplication of work here, so I'd like to be able to use the 4-point version to populate the first 4 points of the 5-point version, so I'm not duplicating that code. (Not that it's much to duplicate, but I have terrible allergic reactions whenever I copy and paste code, and I'd like to avoid that.)

The thing is, C++ doesn't seem to care for the idea of converting a T[m] to a T[n] where n < m. static_cast seems to think the types are incompatible for some reason. reinterpret_cast handles it fine, of course, but is a dangerous animal that, as a general rule, is better to avoid if at all possible.

So my question is: is there a type-safe way of casting an array of one size to an array of a smaller size where the array type is the same?

[Edit] Code, yes. I should have mentioned that the parameter is actually a reference to an array, not simply a pointer, so the compiler is aware of the type difference.

void RectToPointArray(const degRect& rect, degPoint(&points)[4])
{
    points[0].lat = rect.nw.lat; points[0].lon = rect.nw.lon;
    points[1].lat = rect.nw.lat; points[1].lon = rect.se.lon;
    points[2].lat = rect.se.lat; points[2].lon = rect.se.lon;
    points[3].lat = rect.se.lat; points[3].lon = rect.nw.lon;
}
void RectToPointArray(const degRect& rect, degPoint(&points)[5])
{
    // I would like to use a more type-safe check here if possible:
    RectToPointArray(rect, reinterpret_cast<degPoint(&)[4]> (points));
    points[4].lat = rect.nw.lat; points[4].lon = rect.nw.lon;
}

[Edit2] The point of passing an array-by-reference is so that we can be at least vaguely sure that the caller is passing in a correct "out parameter".

Answer 1

I don't think it's a good idea to do this by overloading. The name of the function doesn't tell the caller whether it's going to fill an open array or not. And what if the caller has only a pointer and wants to fill coordinates (let's say he wants to fill multiple rectangles to be part of a bigger array at different offsets)?

I would do this by two functions, and let them take pointers. The size isn't part of the pointer's type

void fillOpenRect(degRect const& rect, degPoint *p) { 
  ... 
}

void fillClosedRect(degRect const& rect, degPoint *p) { 
  fillOpenRect(rect, p); p[4] = p[0]; 
}

I don't see what's wrong with this. Your reinterpret-cast should work fine in practice (i don't see what could go wrong - both alignment and representation will be correct, so the merely formal undefinedness won't carry out to reality here, i think), but as i said above i think there's no good reason to make these functions take the arrays by reference.

---

If you want to do it generically, you can write it by output iterators

template<typename OutputIterator> 
OutputIterator fillOpenRect(degRect const& rect, OutputIterator out) { 
  typedef typename iterator_traits<OutputIterator>::value_type value_type;
  value_type pt[] = { 
    { rect.nw.lat, rect.nw.lon },
    { rect.nw.lat, rect.se.lon },
    { rect.se.lat, rect.se.lon },
    { rect.se.lat, rect.nw.lon }
  };
  for(int i = 0; i < 4; i++)
    *out++ = pt[i];
  return out;
}

template<typename OutputIterator>
OutputIterator fillClosedRect(degRect const& rect, OutputIterator out) { 
  typedef typename iterator_traits<OutputIterator>::value_type value_type;
  out = fillOpenRect(rect, out); 

  value_type p1 = { rect.nw.lat, rect.nw.lon };
  *out++ = p1;
  return out;
}

You can then use it with vectors and also with arrays, whatever you prefer most.

std::vector<degPoint> points;
fillClosedRect(someRect, std::back_inserter(points));

degPoint points[5];
fillClosedRect(someRect, points);

If you want to write safer code, you can use the vector way with back-inserters, and if you work with lower level code, you can use a pointer as output iterator.

Answer 2

I would use std::vector or (this is really bad and should not be used) in some extreme cases you can even use plain arrays via pointer like Point* and then you shouldn't have such "casting" troubles.

Answer 3

Why don't you just pass a standard pointer, instead of a sized one, like this

void RectToPointArray(const degRect& rect, degPoint * points ) ;