Why is ::operator new[] necessary when ::operator new is enough?

Question

As we know, the C++ standard defines two forms of global allocation functions:

void* operator new(size_t);
void* operator new[](size_t);

An

Answer 1

I'm sure there are proper use-cases out there that require separate new[] and new, but I haven't encountered one yet that is uniquely possible with this separation and nothing else.

However, I see it like this: since the user calls different versions of operator new, the C++ standard would have been guilty of wantonly and deliberately losing information if they'd defined just one operator new and had both new and new[] forward there. There is (literally) one bit of information here, that might be useful to somebody, and I don't think people on the committee could have thrown it out in good conscience!

Besides, having to implement the extra new[] is a very very minor inconvenience to the rest of us, if at all, so the trade off of preserving a single bit of information wins against having to implement a single simple function in a small fraction of our programs.