Storage variable inside a function

Question

I am reading the solidity docs but there is a part I don't really understand.

In this example:

pragma solidity ^0.4.0;

contract C {
    uint someVariable;
    uint[] data;

    function f() public {
        uint[] x;
        x.push(2);
        data = x;
    }
}

the doc says that "The type of the local variable x is uint[] storage, but since storage is not dynamically allocated, it has to be assigned from a state variable before it can be used."

I don't really understand what does it mean by "storage is not dynamically allocated" and why the method "x.push(2)" does change the "somevariable"

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

why the method "x.push(2)" does change the "somevariable"

Because when you thought you declared memory variable as uint[] x;, compiler interpreted it as storage pointer. Which by default points at storage slot 0 where somevariable exist.

This happens because you cannot declare storage variable inside of the function; you can either declare memory variable or create storage pointer.

---

To declare array in memory it must be fixed sized and follow this syntax:

function f() public {
    uint[] memory x = new uint[](3); // size of array in round brackets 
    x[0] = 2; // array.push() is not allowed
    data = x;
}