Put an array's brackets where C++ puts them, everywhere

[matt-edmondson]

Closes #51.

SpellDeclarator exists to move an array's brackets onto the declarator, and its remarks claimed sole ownership of that rule. C reached it from six places. C++ reached it from one — a field — while MapToCppType quietly appended the brackets in type position for everything else:

int[] steps          // parameter
int[] steps;         // local
int[] collect()      // return type

None of those is C++. All three are hard errors in a generated header, and IsArray was added precisely so a generated constant table could be emitted — so an element type reaching a signature is on the route, not beside it.

Three sites, not the two the issue names. A VariableDeclaration standing as a class member had it too.

MapToCppType no longer spells brackets at all. The positions it is still reached from are ones C++ does not let an array stand in — a return type, a base type, an enumeration's underlying type — so brackets there were a compile error wearing the shape of a feature. SpellDeclarator also now handles a declarator with no name, which an unnamed parameter is: T[] rather than T [].

The test that was actually missing

C, Rust and Go are each checked by compiling what they write. C++ was not — which is why this survived. Every spelling around it was pinned, and a spelling can be pinned and still be one a compiler refuses.

CppGeneratedSourceCompilesTests compiles a header through g++. It was checked against the bug before the fix went in: with the generator reverted, g++ rejects the header with expected ',' or '...' before 'steps'. The first version of the test passed against the broken generator because the build had failed on a formatting rule and the old binary ran — worth saying, because a compile test that never saw the failure proves nothing.

Writing it turned up something worth stating, and it is now written down in CLAUDE.md rather than discovered again:

IsArray carries no bound, so of the positions that declare a name, only a parameter and an initialised constant table can hold one. A data member and a local both need a bound C++ can see.

That is exactly the pair the table IsArray exists for, so the exemplar is those two.

Coverage

• CppGeneratorTests — the three spellings, including that a return type carries no brackets.
• CppGeneratedSourceCompilesTests — a parameter subscripted in the body, so the spelling is load-bearing rather than merely present.

847/847 tests pass, including the C, Rust, Go and now C++ toolchain tests.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01QGCMUrT3jBgmANHNHcPmBf

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Generated by Claude Code

[sonarqubecloud]

Quality Gate passed

Issues
1 New issue
0 Accepted issues

Measures
0 Security Hotspots
100.0% Coverage on New Code
0.0% Duplication on New Code

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