Why does this work:

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stddef.h>

typedef struct x {
    int a;
    int b[128];
} x_t;


int function(int i)
{
  size_t a;

  a = offsetof(x_t, b[i]);

  return a;
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    printf("%d\n", function(atoi(argv[1])));
}

If I remember the definition of offsetof correctly, it's a compile time construct. Using 'i' as the array index results in a non-constant expression. I don't understand how the compiler can evaluate the expression at compile time. Why isn't this flagged as an error?