Why Can't We Pass Arrays to Functions Directly?

Passing Arrays to Functions: A Historical Enigma

Despite our ability to seamlessly pass complex class instances to functions, the question arises: why can't we do the same with arrays? This historical enigma stems from the initial rule that arrays "decay into pointers" when passed to functions.

This rule was adopted for its simplicity, ensuring a consistent behavior across different parameters and function declarations. Conversely, copying arrays would introduce unnecessary complexity and ambiguity in the code.

However, it's worth noting that indirect pass-by-value is still possible:

struct A { int arr[2]; };
void func(struct A);

By encapsulating the array within a structure and passing the structure as a parameter, we effectively avoid direct pass-by-value of the array while maintaining the desired behavior.

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