Let's say the array is 1m elements... the "ifs" inside the loop will be correctly predicted for cases 2..999,999 the processing is not "blind" to the new spec

Let's say the array is 1m elements... the "ifs" inside the loop will be correctly predicted for cases 2..999,999 the processing is not "blind" to the new special case: "the array is padded", the loop is 1..size-1, which I think it's an error. Shouldn't be 1..size-2?