Structures in C
Presented by,
Name University Roll no
Aniruddha Das 35000324048
Soumyadeep Mondal 35000324061
Barnita Das 35000324055
Amit Das 35000324056
Trinni ghosh 35000324037
Agenda
Introduction 1
Defining structures 2
typedef for Structures 3
Array of Structures 4
Summary 5
1 Introduction
// Example
#include <stdio.h>
In C, a structure is a user- // Defining a structure
defined data type that can be struct A {
used to group items of int x;
};
possibly different types into a
single type. int main() {
The struct keyword is used to
define a structure. The items // Creating a structure
variable
in the structure are called struct A a;
its member and they can be of // Initializing member
any valid data type. a.x = 11;
printf("%d", a.x);
return 0;
}
// output = 11
2 Defining structures
There are two steps of creating a structure in C:
1. Structure Definition
2. Creating Structure Variables
Structure Definition
A structure is defined using the struct keyword
followed by the structure name and its members.
It is also called a structure template or
structure prototype, and no memory is allocated
to the structure in the declaration.
struct structure_name { structure_name: Name of the structure.
data_type1 member1; member1, member2, …: Name of the
data_type2 member2; members.
… data_type1, data_type2, …: Type of the
}; members.
Creating Structure Variable
After structure definition, we have to create variable of
that structure to use it. It is similar to the any other type
of variable declaration:
struct strcuture_name var;
We can also declare structure variables with structure definition.
struct structure_name {
…
}var1, var2….;
Basic Operations of Structure
1. Access Structure Members: To access or structure_name . member1;
modify members of a structure, we use the ( strcuture_name . member2;
. ) dot operator. This is applicable when we
are using structure variables directly.
In the case where we have a pointer to
structure_ptr -> member1
the structure, we can also use the arrow structure_ptr -> member2
operator to access the members.
2. Initialize Structure Members: Structure struct structure_name
members cannot be initialized with the str;
declaration. str.member1 = value1;
….
Initialization using Assignment Operator
struct structure_name str = {value1, value2,
Initialization using Initializer List : value3 ….};
Initialization using Designated Initializer List:
struct structure_name str = { .member1 = value1, .member2 = value2, .member3 = value3 };
#include <stdio.h>
3. Copy Structure: Copying #include <stdlib.h>
structure is simple as copying struct Student {
int id;
any other variables. For
char grade;
example, s1 is copied into s2 };
using assignment operator. int main() {
struct Student s1 = {1, 'A'};
// Create a copy of student s1
struct Student s1c = s1;
printf("Student 1 ID: %d\n", s1c.id);
// Output
printf("Student 1 Grade: %c", s1c.grade);
Student 1 ID: 1 return 0;
Student 1 Grade: A
}
4. Passing Structure to Functions:
Structure can be passed to a function
in the same way as normal variables. #include <stdio.h>
Though, it is recommended to pass it // Structure definition
as a pointer to avoid copying a large struct A {
amount of data. int x;
};
// Function to increment values
void increment(struct A a, struct A* b) {
a.x++;
b->x++;
}
int main() {
struct A a = { 10 };
struct A b = { 10 };
// Passing a by value and b by pointer
increment(a, &b);
// Output printf("a.x: %d \tb.x: %d", a.x, b.x);
a.x: 10 return 0;
b.x: 11 }
3 typedef for Structures
The typedef keyword #include <stdio.h>
is used to define an // Defining structure
alias for the already typedef struct {
int a;
existing datatype. In
} str1;
structures, we have to // Another way of using typedef with
use the struct keyword structures
along with the typedef struct {
structure name to int x;
define the variables. } str2;
Sometimes, this int main() {
increases the length // Creating structure variables using
new names
and complexity of the
str1 var1 = { 20 };
code. We can use the str2 var2 = { 314 };
typedef to define some printf("var1.a = %d\t", var1.a);
new shorter name for printf("var2.x = %d\n", var2.x);
the structure. return 0;
} //output = var1.a = 20 var2.x = 314
4 Array of Structures
#include <stdio.h>
An array of structures is
#include <string.h>
simply an array where each
element is a structure. It // Structure definition
allows you to store several struct A {
structures of the same type in int var;
a single array. };
int main() {
Explanation: We define a
Person structure with name // Declare an array of structures
and age as members. An array struct A arr[2];
of 2 Person structures is arr[0].var = 10;
declared, and each element is arr[1].var = 20;
populated with different
people’s details. A for loop is for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++)
used to iterate through the printf("%d\t", arr[i].var);
array and print each person's return 0;
} // Output = 10 20
information.
5 Summary
There are conditions where we need to keep more
than one attribute for an entity in the C language. An
entity need not include all the information of a single
type. It is capable of having various properties from
various data types. As an illustration, a student object
may have a name (string), roll number (int), and marks
(float). We have the following methods for storing this
sort of student-related information:
• Construct individual arrays for storing names, roll
numbers, and marks.
• Use a special data structure to store the collection
of different data types.
Thank you
