Structures C Programming

What is Structure and its need?

Structure is a collection of variables (variables can be of different types) under a single

For example:

We may want to store information about a person: his/her name, citizenship number and
salary. We can create different variables name, citNo and salary to store this information
separately.

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Its need: What if we need to store information of more than one person? Now, we need to
create different variables for each information per person:

i.e.

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 as a structure, and use it for every person.

How to define a structure in C program?

Keyword struct is used in C code for creating a structure.

[null img]

struct structure_name

data_type member-1;

data_type member-2;

data_type member-n;

};Syntax of structure:

Here is an example:

struct Person

{
char name[50];

int citNo;

float salary;

};

Above declaration creates the derived data type (or User defined type) struct Person. Once
derived data type like Person is created, then we can create variables of that type. I.e.
Person p1,p2,…,pn or p[n] as below

Creating structure variables:

When a structure is defined, it creates a user-defined type. However, no storage or memory is

Here' how structure variables created:

Eg:-struct Person

char name[50];

int citNo;

float salary;

};

int main()

struct Person person1, person2, p[20];

return 0;

Another way of creating a structure variable is:

struct Person

char name[50];

int citNo;

float salary;
} person1, person2, p[20];

In both cases, two variables person1, person2, and an array variable p having 20 elements of
type struct Person are created.

How to 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(->)

Eg:- Suppose, we want to access salary of person2. Here's how you can do

it:

person2.salary;

Example: C structure

// Program to add two distances which is in feet and inches

#include <stdio.h>

struct Distance

int feet;

float inch;

} dist1, dist2, sum;

int main()

printf("1st distance\n");

printf("Enter feet and inch: ");

scanf("%d%f", &dist1.feet, &dist1.inch);

printf("2nd distance\n");

printf("Enter feet and inch: ");

scanf("%d%f", &dist2.feet, &dist2.inch);

// adding feet
sum.feet = dist1.feet + dist2.feet;

// adding inches

sum.inch = dist1.inch + dist2.inch;

// changing feet if inch is greater than 12

while (sum.inch >= 12)

++sum.feet;

sum.inch = sum.inch - 12;

printf("Sum of distances = %d\'-%.1f\"", sum.feet, sum.inch);

return 0;

Output

1st distance

Enter feet: 12

Enter inch: 7.9

2nd distance

Enter feet: 2

Enter inch: 9.8

Sum of distances = 15'-5.7"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nested Structure in C
When a structure contains another structure, it is called nested structure.

“For example, we can have two structures named Address and Employee. To make Address
nested to Employee, we have to define Address structure before and outside Employee
structure and create a variable of structure type i.e. Address type inside Employee
structure.”

Syntax for structure within structure or nested structure

----------

----------

};

struct structure2

----------

----------

struct structure1 st;

};

Example for structure within structure or nested structure

#include<stdio.h>

[null img][null img] struct Address

char HouseNo[25];

char City[25];

char PinCode[25];

[null img] }; Example of Nested Structure

struct Employee

int Id;

char Name[25];

float Salary;

struct Address Add;

[null img] };

void main()
{

struct Employee E;

printf("\n\tEnter Employee Id : ");

scanf("%d",&E.Id);

printf("\n\tEnter Employee Name : ");

scanf("%s",&E.Name);

printf("\n\tEnter Employee Salary : ");

scanf("%f",&E.Salary);

printf("\n\tEnter Employee House No : ");

scanf("%s",&E.Add.HouseNo);

printf("\n\tEnter Employee City : ");

scanf("%s",&E.Add.City);

printf("\n\tEnter Employee House No : ");

scanf("%s",&E.Add.PinCode);

printf("\nDetails of Employees");

printf("\n\tEmployee Id : %d",E.Id);

printf("\n\tEmployee Name : %s",E.Name);

printf("\n\tEmployee Salary : %f",E.Salary);

printf("\n\tEmployee House No : %s",E.Add.HouseNo);

printf("\n\tEmployee City : %s",E.Add.City);

printf("\n\tEmployee House No : %s",E.Add.PinCode);

Output :

Enter Employee Id : 101

Enter Employee Name : Ritesh

Enter Employee Salary : 45000

Enter Employee House No : 4598/D

Enter Employee Pin Code : 110056

Details of Employees

Employee Id : 101

Employee Name : Ritesh

Employee Salary : 45000

Employee House No : 4598/D

Employee City : Delhi

Employee Pin Code : 110056

Passing structure as an argument to a function

A structure variable can be passed to the function as an argument as a normal variable.

If structure is passed by value, changes made to the structure variable inside the function
definition does not reflect in the originally passed structure variable.

#include <stdio.h>

#include <string.h>

struct student

char name[50];

int roll;

};

void display(struct student stu);

int main()

struct student stud;

printf("Enter student's name: ");

gets(stud.name);

printf("Enter roll number:");

display(stud); // passing structure variable stud as argument

return 0;

void display(struct student stu){

printf("Output\nName: %s",stu.name);

printf("\nRoll: %d",stu.roll);

Output

Enter student's name: Kevin Amla

Enter roll number: 149

Output

Name: Kevin Amla

Roll: 149

Here's how we 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;

Passing structure by reference

You can also pass a structure by reference (in a similar way like you pass variables of built-in
type by reference). We suggest you to read pass by reference article before you proceed.

During pass by reference, the memory address of a structure is 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;

When you run the program, the output will be:

For first number,

Enter real part: 1.1

Enter imaginary part: -2.4

For second number,

Enter real part: 3.4

result.real = 4.5

result.imag = -5.6

Array of Structures in C

Declaring an array of structure is same as declaring an array of fundamental types.

Syntax:

struct struct-name

datatype var1;

datatype var2;

----------

----------

datatype varN;

};

Void main()

struct struct-name Structure_Variabke_Name[ size ];//Array of structure

-----------

-----------

Example: below code is for getting and displaying the data of 3 employee using array of
structure.
#include<stdio.h>
struct Employee

int Id;
char Name[25];
int Age;

long Salary;

};
void main()

{
int i;

struct Employee Emp[ 3 ]; //Array of structure statement

for(i=0;i<3;i++)
{

printf("\nEnter details of %d Employee",i+1);

printf("\n\tEnter Employee Id : ");

scanf("%d",&Emp[i].Id);

printf("\n\tEnter Employee Name : ");

printf("\n\tEnter Employee Age : ");

scanf("%d",&Emp[i].Age);

printf("\n\tEnter Employee Salary : ");

printf("\nDetails of Employees");

for(i=0;i<3;i++)

printf("\n%d\t%s\t%d\t%ld",Emp[i].Id,Emp[i].Name,Emp[i].Age,Emp[i].Salary);
}

Output :
Enter details of 1 Employee

Enter Employee Id : 101

Enter Employee Age : 42

Enter Employee Salary : 52000

Enter Employee Id : 102

Enter Employee Age : 31

Enter Employee Salary : 50000

Enter details of 3 Employee

Enter Employee Name : Ramesh

Enter Employee Age : 28

Enter Employee Salary : 47000

Details of Employees
101 Suresh 42 52000

102 Mukesh 31 50000

103 Ramesh 28 47000