What's the rationale for preventing assignment to arrays?

Question

I\'ve tried to google this and have read:

• Why can\'t arrays of same type and size be assigned?
• Assigning arrays
• Assign to array in struct in

Answer 1

Understand that the intent wasn't to make array expressions unassignable; that wasn't the goal¹. Rather, this behavior falls out of a design decision Ritchie made that simplified array handling in the compiler, but in exchange made arrays expressions "second-class" objects; they lose their "array-ness" in most contexts.

Read this paper (especially the section titled "Embryonic C") for some background; I also have a more detailed answer here.

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<sup>1. With the possible exception of Perl or PHP2, most blatant language WTFs are generally accidents of design or the result of compromises; most languages aren't deliberately designed to be stupid.

2. I'm only trolling a little bit; Perl and PHP are straight-up messes.</sup>