C struct

In C programming, a struct (or structure) is a collection of variables (can be

of different types) under a single name.

Define Structures
Before you can create structure variables, you need to define its data type.
To define a struct, the struct keyword is used.
Syntax of struct

struct structureName {
dataType member1;
dataType member2;
...
};

For example,

struct Person {
char name[50];
int citNo;
float salary;
};

Here, a derived type struct Person is defined. Now, you can create
variables of this type.
 Create struct Variables
When a struct type is declared, no storage or memory is allocated. To
allocate memory of a given structure type and work with it, we need to
create variables.
Here's how we create structure variables:

struct Person {
// code
};

int main() {
struct Person person1, person2, p[20];
return 0;
}

Another way of creating a struct variable is:

struct Person {
// code
} person1, person2, p[20];

In both cases,

 person1 and person2 are struct Person variables

 p[] is a struct Person array of size 20.

Access Members of a Structure

There are two types of operators used for accessing members of a
structure.

1. . - Member operator
2. -> - Structure pointer operator
Suppose, you want to access the salary of person2 . Here's how you can do
it.

person2.salary

Example 1:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

// create struct with person1 variable

struct Person {
char name[50];
int citNo;
float salary;
} person1;

int main() {

// assign value to name of person1

strcpy(person1.name, "George Orwell");

// assign values to other person1 variables

person1.citNo = 1984;
person1. salary = 2500;

// print struct variables

printf("Name: %s\n", person1.name);
printf("Citizenship No.: %d\n", person1.citNo);
printf("Salary: %.2f", person1.salary);

return 0;
}

Output

Name: George Orwell

Citizenship No.: 1984
Salary: 2500.00

In this program, we have created a struct named Person . We have also

created a variable of Person named person1 .

In main() , we have assigned values to the variables defined in Person for

the person1 object.

strcpy(person1.name, "George Orwell");

person1.citNo = 1984;
person1. salary = 2500;

Notice that we have used strcpy() function to assign the value

to person1.name .

This is because name is a char array (C-string) and we cannot use the
assignment operator = with it after we have declared the string.
Finally, we printed the data of person1 .

Keyword typedef
We use the typedef keyword to create an alias name for data types. It is
commonly used with structures to simplify the syntax of declaring variables.
For example, let us look at the following code:

struct Distance{
int feet;
float inch;
};

int main() {
struct Distance d1, d2;
}

We can use typedef to write an equivalent code with a simplified syntax:

typedef struct Distance {
int feet;
float inch;
} distances;

int main() {
distances d1, d2;
}

Nested Structures
You can create structures within a structure in C programming. For
example,

struct complex {
int imag;
float real;
};

struct number {
struct complex comp;
int integers;
} num1, num2;

Suppose, you want to set imag of num2 variable to 11. Here's how you can
do it:

num2.comp.imag = 11;
Example 3: Nested Structures

#include <stdio.h>

struct complex {
int imag;
float real;
};

struct number {
struct complex comp;
int integer;
} num1;

int main() {

// initialize complex variables

num1.comp.imag = 11;
num1.comp.real = 5.25;

// initialize number variable

num1.integer = 6;

// print struct variables

printf("Imaginary Part: %d\n", num1.comp.imag);
printf("Real Part: %.2f\n", num1.comp.real);
printf("Integer: %d", num1.integer);

return 0;
}

Output

Imaginary Part: 11
Real Part: 5.25
Integer: 6
Why structs in C?
Suppose, you want to store information about a person: his/her name,
citizenship number, and salary. You can create different
variables name , citNo and salary to store this information.

What if you need to store information of more than one person? Now, you
need to create different variables for each information per
person: name1 , citNo1 , salary1 , name2 , citNo2 , salary2 , etc.
A better approach would be to have a collection of all related information
under a single name Person structure and use it for every person.

C structs and Pointers

C Pointers to struct
Here's how you can create pointers to structs.

struct name {
member1;
member2;
.
.
};

int main()
{
struct name *ptr, Harry;
}

Here, ptr is a pointer to struct .

 Example: Access members using Pointer
To access members of a structure using pointers, we use the -> operator.

#include <stdio.h>
struct person
{
int age;
float weight;
};

int main()
{
struct person *personPtr, person1;
personPtr = &person1;

printf("Enter age: ");

scanf("%d", &personPtr->age);

printf("Enter weight: ");

scanf("%f", &personPtr->weight);

printf("Displaying:\n");
printf("Age: %d\n", personPtr->age);
printf("weight: %f", personPtr->weight);

return 0;
}

In this example, the address of person1 is stored in the personPtr pointer

using personPtr = &person1; .

Now, you can access the members of person1 using the personPtr pointer.
By the way,

 personPtr->age is equivalent to (*personPtr).age

 personPtr->weight is equivalent to (*personPtr).weight

Dynamic memory allocation of structs

Sometimes, the number of struct variables you declared may be

insufficient. You may need to allocate memory during run-time. Here's how
you can achieve this in C programming.

Example: Dynamic memory allocation of structs

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
struct person {
int age;
float weight;
char name[30];
};

int main()
{
struct person *ptr;
int i, n;

printf("Enter the number of persons: ");

scanf("%d", &n);

// allocating memory for n numbers of struct person

ptr = (struct person*) malloc(n * sizeof(struct person));

for(i = 0; i < n; ++i)

{
printf("Enter first name and age respectively: ");

// To access members of 1st struct person,

// ptr->name and ptr->age is used

// To access members of 2nd struct person,

// (ptr+1)->name and (ptr+1)->age is used
scanf("%s %d", (ptr+i)->name, &(ptr+i)->age);
}

printf("Displaying Information:\n");
for(i = 0; i < n; ++i)
printf("Name: %s\tAge: %d\n", (ptr+i)->name, (ptr+i)->age);
 return 0;
}

When you run the program, the output will be:

Enter the number of persons: 2

Enter first name and age respectively: Harry 24
Enter first name and age respectively: Gary 32
Displaying Information:
Name: Harry Age: 24
Name: Gary Age: 32

In the above example, n number of struct variables are created where n is

entered by the user.
To allocate the memory for n number of struct person , we used,

ptr = (struct person*) malloc(n * sizeof(struct person));

Then, we used the ptr pointer to access elements of person .

C Structure and Function

Similar to variables of built-in types, you can also pass structure variables
to a function.
Passing structs to functions
Here's how you can pass structures to a function

#include <stdio.h>
struct student {
char name[50];
int age;
};

// function prototype
void display(struct student s);

int main() {
struct student s1;

printf("Enter name: ");

// read string input from the user until \n is entered

// \n is discarded
scanf("%[^\n]%*c", s1.name);

printf("Enter age: ");

scanf("%d", &s1.age);

display(s1); // passing struct as an argument

return 0;
}

void display(struct student s) {

printf("\nDisplaying information\n");
printf("Name: %s", s.name);
printf("\nAge: %d", s.age);
}

Output

Enter name: Bond

Enter age: 13
Displaying information
Name: Bond
Age: 13

Here, a struct variable s1 of type struct student is created. The variable is

passed to the display() function using display(s1); statement.

Return struct from a function

Here's how you can return structure from a function:

#include <stdio.h>
struct student
{
char name[50];
int age;
};

// function prototype
struct student getInformation();

int main()
{
struct student s;

s = getInformation();

printf("\nDisplaying information\n");
printf("Name: %s", s.name);
printf("\nRoll: %d", s.age);

return 0;
}
struct student getInformation()
{
struct student s1;

printf("Enter name: ");

scanf ("%[^\n]%*c", s1.name);
 printf("Enter age: ");
scanf("%d", &s1.age);

return s1;
}

Here, the getInformation() function is called using s =

getInformation(); statement. The function returns a structure of type struct

student . The returned structure is displayed from the main() function.

Notice that, the return type of getInformation() is also struct student .

Passing struct by reference

You can also pass structs by reference (in a similar way like you pass
variables of built-in type by reference). We suggest you to read pass by
reference tutorial before you proceed.
During pass by reference, the memory addresses of struct variables
are passed to the function.

#include <stdio.h>
typedef struct Complex
{
float real;
float imag;
} complex;

void addNumbers(complex c1, complex c2, complex *result);

int main()
{
complex c1, c2, result;
 printf("For first number,\n");
printf("Enter real part: ");
scanf("%f", &c1.real);
printf("Enter imaginary part: ");
scanf("%f", &c1.imag);

printf("For second number, \n");

printf("Enter real part: ");
scanf("%f", &c2.real);
printf("Enter imaginary part: ");
scanf("%f", &c2.imag);

addNumbers(c1, c2, &result);

printf("\nresult.real = %.1f\n", result.real);
printf("result.imag = %.1f", result.imag);

return 0;
}
void addNumbers(complex c1, complex c2, complex *result)
{
result->real = c1.real + c2.real;
result->imag = c1.imag + c2.imag;
}

Output

For first number,

Enter real part: 1.1
Enter imaginary part: -2.4
For second number,
Enter real part: 3.4
Enter imaginary part: -3.2

result.real = 4.5
result.imag = -5.6

In the above program, three structure variables c1 , c2 and the address

of result is passed to the addNumbers() function. Here, result is passed by
reference.
When the result variable inside the addNumbers() is altered,
the result variable inside the main() function is also altered accordingly.
C Unions
A union is a user-defined type similar to structs in C except for one key
difference.
Structures allocate enough space to store all their members,
whereas unions can only hold one member value at a time.

How to define a union?

We use the union keyword to define unions. Here's an example:

union car
{
char name[50];
int price;
};

The above code defines a derived type union car .

Create union variables

When a union is defined, it creates a user-defined type. However, no
memory is allocated. To allocate memory for a given union type and work
with it, we need to create variables.

Here's how we create union variables.

union car
{
char name[50];
int price;
 };

int main()
{
union car car1, car2, *car3;
return 0;
}

Another way of creating union variables is:

union car
{
char name[50];
int price;
} car1, car2, *car3;

In both cases, union variables car1 , car2 , and a union pointer car3 of union

car type are created.

Access members of a union

We use the . operator to access members of a union. And to access

pointer variables, we use the -> operator.
In the above example,

 To access price for car1 , car1.price is used.

 To access price using car3 , either (*car3).price or car3->price can be used.
 Difference between unions and structures
Let's take an example to demonstrate the difference between unions and
structures:

#include <stdio.h>
union unionJob
{
//defining a union
char name[32];
float salary;
int workerNo;
} uJob;

struct structJob
{
char name[32];
float salary;
int workerNo;
} sJob;

int main()
{
printf("size of union = %d bytes", sizeof(uJob));
printf("\nsize of structure = %d bytes", sizeof(sJob));
return 0;
}

Output

size of union = 32
size of structure = 40

Why this difference in the size of union and structure variables?

Here, the size of sJob is 40 bytes because
 the size of name[32] is 32 bytes
 the size of salary is 4 bytes
 the size of workerNo is 4 bytes
However, the size of uJob is 32 bytes. It's because the size of a union
variable will always be the size of its largest element. In the above
example, the size of its largest element, ( name[32] ), is 32 bytes.
With a union, all members share the same memory.

Example: Accessing Union Members

#include <stdio.h>
union Job {
float salary;
int workerNo;
} j;

int main() {
j.salary = 12.3;

// when j.workerNo is assigned a value,

// j.salary will no longer hold 12.3
j.workerNo = 100;

printf("Salary = %.1f\n", j.salary);

printf("Number of workers = %d", j.workerNo);
return 0;
}

Output

Salary = 0.0
Number of workers = 100

C Struct Examples
Store information of a student using structure

Add two distances (in inch-feet)

Add two complex numbers by passing structures to a function

Calculate the difference between two time periods

Store information of 10 students using structures

Store information of n students using structures