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Advanced Data types

HoangND1

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Objectives - 1

 Explain structures and their use

 Define structures
 Declare structure variables
 Explain how structure elements are accessed
 Explain how structures are initialized
 Explain how assignment statements are used with
structures

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Objectives - 2

 Explain how structures can be passed as

arguments to functions
 Use arrays of structures
 Explain the initialization of structure arrays
 Explain pointers to structures
Explain how structure pointers can be passed as
arguments to functions

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Structures
 A structure consists of a number of data items, which need
not be of the same data type, grouped together
 The structure could hold as many of these items as desired

1 I I L L U S I O N B A C H 1
Variable L
L
U Name of the book Author
Edition
S
I
O
N Array

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Defining a Structure

 A structure definition forms a template for creating

structure variables
 The variables in the structure are called structure
elements or structure members
 Example:
struct cat
{ char bk_name [25];
char author [20];
int edn;
float price;
};

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Declaring Structure Variables
 Once the structure has been defined, one or more
variables of that type can be declared
 Example: struct cat books1;
 The statement sets aside enough memory to hold all
items in the structure

struct cat { char bk_name[25]; struct cat books1, books2;

char author[20];
int edn;
or
struct cat books1;
float price;
} books1, books2; struct cat books2;

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Accessing Structure Elements

 Structure elements are referenced through the use of the

dot operator (.), also known as the membership
operator
 Syntax:
structure_name.element_name
 Example:
scanf(“%s”, books1.bk_name);

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Initializing Structures
 Like variables and arrays, structure variables can be
initialized at the point of declaration
struct employee
{ int no;
char name [20];
};
 Variables emp1 and emp2 of the type employee can
be declared and initialized as:
struct employee emp1 = {346, “Abraham”};
struct employee emp2 = {347, “John”};

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Assignment Statements Used
with Structures-1

 It is possible to assign the values of one structure variable

to another variable of the same type using a simple
assignment statement

 For example, if books 1 and books2 are structure

variables of the same type, the following statement is
valid
books2 = books1;

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Assignment Statements Used
with Structures - 2

 In cases where direct assignment is not possible, the in-

built function memcpy() can be used

 Syntax:
memcpy (char * destn, char &source, int nbytes);

 Example:
memcpy (&books2, &books1, sizeof(struct cat));

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Structures within Structures

 It is possible to have one structure within another structure.

A structure cannot be nested within itself
struct issue
{
char borrower [20];
char dt_of_issue[8];
struct cat books;
}issl;
 To access the elements of the structure the format will be similar to
the one used with normal structures,
[Link]
 To access elements of the structure cat, which is a part of another
structure issue,
[Link]

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Passing Structures as
Arguments

 A structure variable can be passed as an

argument to a function

 This facility is used to pass groups of logically

related data items together instead of passing
them one by one

 The type of the argument should match the type

of the parameter

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Array of Structures

 A common use of structures is in arrays of structures

 A structure is first defined, and then an array variable of
that type is declared
 Example:

struct cat books[50];

 To the access the variable author of the fourth element of

the array books:

books[4].author

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Initialization of Structure
Arrays

 Structure arrays are initialized by enclosing the list of

values of its elements within a pair of braces
 Example:
struct unit
{ char ch;
int i;
};

struct unit series [3] =

{ {‘a’, 100}
{‘b’, 200}
{‘c’, 300}
};

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Pointers to Structures

 Structure pointers are declared by placing an asterisk(*)

in front of the structure variable’s name
 The -> operator is used to access the elements of a
structure using a pointer
 Example:
struct cat *ptr_bk;
ptr_bk = &books;
printf(“%s”, ptr_bk->author);
 Structure pointers passed as arguments to functions
enable the function to modify the structure elements
directly

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 The typedef keyword

 A new data type name can be defined by using the

keyword typedef
 It does not create a new data type, but defines a new
name for an existing type
 Syntax:
typedef type name;
 Example:
typedef float deci;
 typedef cannot be used with storage classes

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1

 Q&A

© FPT SOFTWARE – TRAINING MATERIAL – Internal use 09e-BM/DT/FSOFT v1/1