[c] C compile error: "Variable-sized object may not be initialized"

Why do I receive the error "Variable-sized object may not be initialized" with the following code?

int boardAux[length][length] = {{0}};

Simply declare length to be a cons, if it is not then you should be allocating memory dynamically

After declaring the array

int boardAux[length][length];

the simplest way to assign the initial values as zero is using for loop, even if it may be a bit lengthy

int i, j;
for (i = 0; i<length; i++)
{
    for (j = 0; j<length; j++)
        boardAux[i][j] = 0;
}

For C++ separate declaration and initialization like this..

int a[n][m] ;
a[n][m]= {0};

You receive this error because in C language you are not allowed to use initializers with variable length arrays. The error message you are getting basically says it all.

6.7.8 Initialization

...

3 The type of the entity to be initialized shall be an array of unknown size or an object type that is not a variable length array type.

int size=5;
int ar[size ]={O};

/* This  operation gives an error -  
variable sized array may not be 
initialised.  Then just try this. 
*/
int size=5,i;
int ar[size];
for(i=0;i<size;i++)
{
    ar[i]=0;
}

The array is not initialized with the memory specified anf throws an error variable sized array may not be initialised I prefer usual way of initialization,

for (i = 0; i <= bins; i++)
        arr[i] = 0;

You cannot do it. C compiler cannot do such a complex thing on stack.

You have to use heap and dynamic allocation.

What you really need to do:

• compute size (nmsizeof(element)) of the memory you need
• call malloc(size) to allocate the memory
• create an accessor: int* access(ptr,x,y,rowSize) { return ptr + y*rowSize + x; }

Use *access(boardAux, x, y, size) = 42 to interact with the matrix.

The question is already answered but I wanted to point out another solution which is fast and works if length is not meant to be changed at run-time. Use macro #define before main() to define length and in main() your initialization will work:

#define length 10

int main()
{
    int boardAux[length][length] = {{0}};
}

Macros are run before the actual compilation and length will be a compile-time constant (as referred by David Rodríguez in his answer). It will actually substitute length with 10 before compilation.

This gives error:

int len;
scanf("%d",&len);
char str[len]="";

This also gives error:

int len=5;
char str[len]="";

But this works fine:

int len=5;
char str[len]; //so the problem lies with assignment not declaration

You need to put value in the following way:

str[0]='a';
str[1]='b'; //like that; and not like str="ab";