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I've noticed that at several places in our code base we use dynamically expanding arrays, i.e. a base array coupled with an element counter and a "max elements" value. What I want to do is replace these with a common data structure and utility functions, for the usual object-oriented reasons. The array elements can be either basic data types or structs, I need fast random access to the elements, and preferably a type-safe implementation. So, basically, what I would like to use is an STL vector, but the code base is restricted to C89 so I have to come up with something else :-) I gave it some thought and whipped up this initial draft, just to show what I'm aiming at: /* Type-safe dynamic list in C89 */ #define list_declare(type) typedef struct _##type##_list_t { type * base_array; size_t elements; size_t max_size; } type##_list_t #define list(type) type##_list_t #define list_new(type, initial_size) { calloc(initial_size, sizeof(type)), 0, initial_size } #define list_free(list) free(list.base_array) #define list_set(list, place, element) if ( list.elements < list.max_size ) { list.base_array[place] = element; } else { /* Array index out of bounds */ } #define list_add(list, element) if ( list.elements < list.max_size ) { list.base_array[list.elements++] = element; } else { /* Expand array then add */ } #define list_get(list, n) list.base_array[n] /* Sample usage: */ list_declare(int); int main(void) { list(int) integers = list_new(int, 10); printf("list[0] = %d\n", list_get(integers, 0)); list_add(integers, 4); printf("list[0] = %d\n", list_get(integers, 0)); list_set(integers, 0, 3); printf("list[0] = %d\n", list_get(integers, 0)); list_free(integers); return EXIT_SUCCESS; } ...however, there must be someone else who has done this before. I'm aware of the FreeBSD sys/queue.h implementation of a similar concept for some different queues, but I can't find anything

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