Printing one variable based on the contents of another variable

I have a function similar to the following that takes an integer as a parameter, and using this integer I want to to access a specific variable. Of course, I can just casebash using the case/switch statement, or if/else, but this is far too dirty and I'm guessing there must be some form of elegant solution.

static unsigned char frame1[] = {...};
static unsigned char frame2[] = {...};
/*...*/
static unsigned char frame30[] = {...};

int select_frame(int frame_number){
  /* How can I use frame_number to select the correct frame variable without case/switch, i开发者_如何学Gof at all? */
}

I feel as though there could potentially be a stringstream method (or similar), though I'm not sure. Any suggestions? I'm happy to see solutions in either of C or C++.

EDIT: I feel I should note that most of these arrays will have over 500 individual elements in them, and thus it becomes a little impractical to combine them all into one giant array. If it's possible, I'm looking for a solution that avoids this method, though I'm currently seriously considering it.

If you want to access one of the frames based on an integer, then simply put the frames into an array:

static unsigned char* frames[30];

frames[0] = (unsigned char*)strdup("first frame's char");
frames[1] = (unsigned char*)strdup("second frame's char");

Then you can directly and efficiently index to frames[i].

In C++, a more flexible approach is to use a std::vector<std::string> (as long as your numbers are contiguous) or even a std::map<int, std::string> (good if you have numbers with gaps, or want to insert/erase single elements often during runtime.

EDIT: helper function to create string literal source code from existing unsigned char arrays (off-the-top-of-my-head, tweaks may be needed):

void f(std::ostream& os, unsigned char* p)
{
    os << '"';
    for ( ; *p; ++p)
    {
        if (*p < ' ' || *p >= 127)
            os << '\\' << std::setw(3) << std::setfill('0') << std::oct << *p;
        else if (*p == '\\')
            os << "\\\\";
        else
            os << *p;
    }
    os << '"';
}

Then just call f(frame1); f(frame2); etc...

I don't think that's possible in C or C++. If you can, why not have a

static unsigned char frame[30][]

You can use 2D array and make it a single frames array variable. Or, if you are ok with using char array then you can use std::string.

static string frames[30] = { "frame1 string", "frame2 string", ..., "frame30 string" };
int select_frame (int frame_number)
{
  string &check = frames[frame_number];
}

If your C compiler is C99 conforming, and the array is defined outside functions, compound literal like the following might meet the purpose.

static unsigned char *frames[] = {
  (unsigned char[]){ 1, 2, ... },
  (unsigned char[]){ 3, 4, ... },
  ...
};

int select_frame(int frame_number){
  ... frames[ frame_number ] ...
}