Julia 1.7.3: Array creation with repeated semicolons and different types doesn't work

[rashidrafeek]

If there are multiple types in the array, repeated semicolon syntax does not seem to work in 1.7.3. For example,

Julia 1.7.3:

julia> [1 2;;; nothing 4]
ERROR: MethodError: no method matching size(::Nothing, ::Int64)
Closest candidates are:
  size(::Union{LinearAlgebra.QR, LinearAlgebra.QRCompactWY, LinearAlgebra.QRPivoted}, ::Integer) at ~/Apps/julia/julia-1.7/share/julia/stdlib/v1.7/LinearAlgebra/src/qr.jl:566
  size(::Union{LinearAlgebra.Cholesky, LinearAlgebra.CholeskyPivoted}, ::Integer) at ~/Apps/julia/julia-1.7/share/julia/stdlib/v1.7/LinearAlgebra/src/cholesky.jl:495
  size(::Union{LinearAlgebra.Hermitian{T, S}, LinearAlgebra.Symmetric{T, S}} where {T, S}, ::Any) at ~/Apps/julia/julia-1.7/share/julia/stdlib/v1.7/LinearAlgebra/src/symmetric.jl:201
  ...
Stacktrace:
 [1] _typed_hvncat_dims(#unused#::Type{Union{Nothing, Int64}}, dims::Tuple{Int64, Int64, Int64}, row_first::Bool, as::Tuple{Int64, Int64, Nothing, Int64})
   @ Base ./abstractarray.jl:2328
 [2] _typed_hvncat(::Type, ::Tuple{Int64, Int64, Int64}, ::Bool, ::Int64, ::Vararg{Any})
   @ Base ./abstractarray.jl:2304
 [3] _hvncat(::Tuple{Int64, Int64, Int64}, ::Bool, ::Int64, ::Vararg{Any})
   @ Base ./abstractarray.jl:2133
 [4] hvncat(::Tuple{Int64, Int64, Int64}, ::Bool, ::Int64, ::Vararg{Any})
   @ Base ./abstractarray.jl:2129
 [5] top-level scope
   @ REPL[21]:1

Julia 1.7.2:

julia> [1 2;;; nothing 4]
1×2×2 Array{Union{Nothing, Int64}, 3}:
[:, :, 1] =
 1  2

[:, :, 2] =
 nothing  4

[rashidrafeek]

Seems like backporting #45365 will fix this.

[BioTurboNick]

As a workaround, you can define:

Base.size(x::Nothing, y::Int) = Base.cat_size(x, y)

[rashidrafeek]

Closing as there seems to be no plan for a 1.7.4 release.