Creating empty arrays with {}

[spinkney]

Is it intended that {} can't be parsed as an empty arrray?

I was trying to pass an empty array into a recursive function with the first iteration and found that I needed to create it as array[0].

[WardBrian]

It’s definitely intentional in the sense that it’s what our parser encodes:

stanc3/src/frontend/parser.mly

Line 579 in c8bae8b

| LBRACE xs=separated_nonempty_list(COMMA, expression) RBRACE

Now I’m not sure whether or not it’s necessary. My first guess is that you might get ambiguities between an empty array expression and an empty block, but I can try it out today and see.

[nhuurre]

I think the main problem is type inference. It would be weirdly limiting if the type of {} was always e.g. array[] int but guessing the type from context is not implemented and is sometimes ambiguous anyway.

functions {
  real f(array[,] real x) {
    return 1.0;
  }
  real f(array[] vector x) {
    return 0.0;
  }
  real g() {
    return f({}); // which overload is it?
  }
}

[WardBrian]

I think your right. We actually would disallow it in the typechecker even if it parsed, see

stanc3/src/frontend/Typechecker.ml

Lines 317 to 321 in c8bae8b

	let check_array_expr loc es =
	match es with
	| [] ->
	(* NB: This is actually disallowed by parser *)
	Semantic_error.empty_array loc |> error

C++ allows empty initializer lists but only if they're unambiguous, e.g. https://godbolt.org/z/MdEKhsdMh

[spinkney]

Would it be possible to allow unambiguous null arrays then? Like int {}, real {}, etc.? Or maybe it's better to have {} int?

[WardBrian]

That is still ambiguous in the number of dimensions. How often is this something somebody would want to have?

[spinkney]

Wouldn't 2d be {,} int? Or am I missing something?

[spinkney]

That is still ambiguous in the number of dimensions. How often is this something somebody would want to have?

I just think it seems like you should be able to construct an empty array like you can a non-empty one. At the minimum, pointing out in the docs that empty arrays cannot be initialized like this seems necessary.

[WardBrian]

Huh, that would be a kind of expression altogether. I don't think that makes a ton of sense, since {1,2} is a 1-d thing, but { , } would be a 2-d thing?

You could write { {} }, but that's really an array[1, 0]. I think writing down a true array[0, 0] is functionally impossible without a specific syntax just for that.

Initializing an empty array is not necessary, since there is only one empty array of a given type, e.g. all array[0] ints are identical, and they're initialized by the compiler to the only value they can have.

[spinkney]

Good example and I wouldn't want a ton of work put into this because it wouldn't be something people do that often. There's also the easy work around of creating the empty array before using the array[0] declaration.

[nhuurre]

I think writing down a true array[0, 0] is functionally impossible without a specific syntax just for that.

You can write rep_array({1.0}, 0) or whatever.

[bob-carpenter]

At the minimum, pointing out in the docs that empty arrays cannot be initialized like this seems necessary.

Agreed. Where do you think that should go in the reference manual and/or user's guide? Would you mind opening a docs issue for this?

it seems like you should be able to construct an empty array like you can a non-empty one

It's easy to think that until you consider what the type should be. While it's tempting to assign {} to array[] int type, it could really be an empty array of anything.

The only solution now with an expression is what @nhuure suggests---just use the array constructors rep_array(). Or we could have typed empty array constructors of some kind, such as empty_int_array(), empty_real_array(), and so on. Super clunky, but easy to type. You can also define specific empty things in transformed data,

transformed data {
  array[0] int empty_int_array;
}

[spinkney]

Agreed. Where do you think that should go in the reference manual and/or user's guide? Would you mind opening a docs issue for this?

Opened a docs issue at stan-dev/docs#621. I believe the relevant section is in the reference manual linked at the aforementioned docs issue.

[WardBrian]

I'm going to close this in favor of the docs issue you created @spinkney