C compile error: “Variable-sized object may not be initialized”

Question

Why do I receive the error \"Variable-sized object may not be initialized\" with the following code?

int boardAux[length][length] = {{0}};

Answer 1

The question is already answered but I wanted to point out another solution which is fast and works if length is not meant to be changed at run-time. Use macro #define before main() to define length and in main() your initialization will work:

#define length 10

int main()
{
    int boardAux[length][length] = {{0}};
}

Macros are run before the actual compilation and length will be a compile-time constant (as referred by David Rodríguez in his answer). It will actually substitute length with 10 before compilation.