Error: initializer element is not computable at load time

I have a function that takes a struct, and I'm trying to store its variables in array:

int detect_prm(Param prm) { int prm_arr[] = {prm.field1, prm.field2, prm.field3}; return 0;
}

But with gcc -Wall -ansi -pedantic-errors -Werror I get the following error:

initializer element is not computable at load time

It looks fine to me, what's wrong?

2 Answers

This is illegal in C. Initializer lists must be constant compile time expressions. Do the following instead:

int prm_arr[3];
prm_arr[0] = prm.field1;
prm_arr[1] = prm.field2;
prm_arr[2] = prm.field3;

Mike's answer is absolutely right.

However, if you're able to use the GNU C extensions, or to use the newer and better C99 standard instead (use the --std=c99 option), then initializers such as this are perfectly legal. The C99 standard has been out for, well, 9 years, and most C compilers support it quite well... especially this feature.