Memory allocation of 1D Arrays (C89 compiler)

Code:

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#include<stdio.h>
void main()
{
        int a[10];
        a[15]=100;
        printf("%d",a[15]);
}

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this code snippet should not be compiled due to obvious reasons but it is getting compiled and it is also printing the value of a[15] as 100...Why so???? i searched and found about VLA (variable length array s in the C99 compiler ) but that is not the answer....would be very obliged if someone could give a proper answer.... I have tried different compilers like devC,turboC,ideone.org

This is the C++ forum. Since you wrote "C89" and your code is stylistically C, I shall move this post to the C forum.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hindol.it

this code snippet should not be compiled due to obvious reasons but it is getting compiled

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The obvious reason is that -- freestanding implementations and a particular interpretation of the C standard aside -- the return type of main should be int, but you declared it as void. Some compilers may accept it; others won't.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hindol.it

and it is also printing the value of a[15] as 100...Why so????

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Accessing an array out of bounds results in undefined behaviour. This means that if the compiler is able to determine it, the compiler can choose to refuse to compile... or it can compile the code but do something entirely different. In the most usual case for such out of bounds access though, this may lead to a crash due to accessing/overwriting memory that should not have been accessed/overwritten.

Hence, printing a[15] as 100 is within the realm of possibilities.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hindol.it

i searched and found about VLA (variable length array s in the C99 compiler ) but that is not the answer....

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Indeed, VLAs have nothing to do with this since the array a is not a VLA.