Why is the maximum size of an array “too large”?

Question

I\'m under the same impression as this answer, that size_t is always guaranteed by the standard to be large enough to hold the largest possible type of a given

Answer 1

Just reasoning from scratch, size_t is a type that can hold the size of any object. The size of any object is limited by the width of the address bus (ignoring multiplexing and systems that can handle eg 32 and 64 bit code, call that "code width"). Anologous to MAX_INT which is the largest integer value, SIZE_MAX is the largest value of size_t. Thus, an object of size SIZE_MAX is all addressable memory. It s reasonable that an implementation flags that as an error, however, I agree that it is an error only in a case where an actual object is allocated, be it on the stack or in global memory. (A call to malloc for that amount will fail anyway)