Specifying type of array on right side of expression

With the following:

typedef struct Person_ {      char* name;      char* parents[2];  } Person;    int main(void)  {      Person jack = {.name="Jack", .parents={"Jim", "Julia"}};      Person tom = {.name="Tom", .parents={"Terry", "Tina"}};      Person friends[2] = (Person[2]) {jack, tom};  }  

I get this error:

error: array initialized from non-constant array expression
Person friends[2] = (Person[2]) {jack, tom};

I know that I can initialize friends as:

Person friends[2] = {jack, tom};  

But why isn't it possible to annotate the type on the right side with an array like I would be able to (though redundantly) with another type such as:

int x = (int) 4;  char *y = (char*) "Hi";    // invalid  // int z[2] = (int[2]) {1,2};   

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66084034/specifying-type-of-array-on-right-side-of-expression February 07, 2021 at 10:31AM