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.