Dynamic and Variable Length Structures

[Peter C. Bahrs]

I want to write a dynamiclly dimensioned container type (oo flavors) 
that is dynamic in the size and number of dimensions, hopefully without
any bounds on either.

Suppose I want to create a thing that can point to integers.  So I want to write
  Type?  *x;
  x = dim(3,4,5);
    or
  dims[0]=3;dims[1]=4;dims[2]=6;dims[3]=4; dims[4]= -1;
  Dim (x, dims);
And now to get an integer I want to say: y = Retrieve(x,dims) where dims
now contains the index (i.e. x[2][3][4]  or x[4][8])

I CAN put a bound on the dimension and use something like
  int ***x;      /* 3 dimensions */
  x = (int ***) calloc (N1, sizeof (int **)); 
  then for each x[i] : x[i] = (int **) calloc (N2, sizeof (int *));
 and x[i][j] = (int *) calloc (N3, sizeof (int));
 so: y = x[a][b][c] is valid;

Yuck (or is it?)

Is there any way to parameterize the (int ***) casts into a #define or an
array so that a simple loop index will invoke the appropriate level of cast?  
This may imply that x should be of type void *. 
Does anyone have any ideas on a solution?  
I will post a summary of replies.

/*----------- Thanks in advance... --------------------------------------+
| Peter C. Bahrs                                                         |
| The USL-NASA Project                                                   |
| Center For Advanced Computer Studies      INET: pcb at gator.cacs.usl.edu |
| 2 Rex Street                                                           |
| University of Southwestern Louisiana      ...!uunet!dalsqnt!gator!pcb  | 
| Lafayette, LA 70504                                                    |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------*/