Declare an array with only one element and still access elements beyond the first element (in a valid fashion)?

There is a way to do this. Using structures.


struct mystruct {
  int  value;
  int length;
  char string[1];
};


Now, when allocating memory to the structure using malloc(), allocate more memory
than what the structure would normally require!. This way, you can access beyond
string[0] (till the extra amount of memory you have allocated, ofcourse).

But remember, compilers which check for array bounds carefully might throw warnings.
Also, you need to have a length field in the structure to keep a count of how big
your one element array really is :).

A cleaner way of doing this is to have a pointer instead of the one element array
and allocate memory for it seperately after allocating memory for the structure.



struct mystruct {
  int  value;
 char *string; // Need to allocate memory using malloc() after allocating memory
for the strucure.
};