Structures and Unions in C

Alan L. Cox alc@rice.edu

Administrivia
Assignment 1 is due tonight Textbook
Lectures begin covering material that is also

covered by the textbook on 2 1 Assignment ! "assigned 2 !# re$uires use o% the textbook

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Structures and Unions

&b'ectives
(e able to use com)ound data structures in )rograms (e able to use com)ound data structures as %unction arguments either by value or by re%erence (e able to do sim)le bit*vector mani)ulations

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Structures and Unions

Structures
Com)ound data+ A date is
an int month and an int day and an int year
struct ADate { int month; int day; int year; }; struct ADate date; date.month = 9; date.day = 1; date.year = 2005; Unlike ,ava- C doesn.t automatically de%ine %unctions %or initiali/ing and )rinting 0

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Structures and Unions

Structure 1e)resentation 2 Si/e

sizeof(struct 3
4 sum o% sizeof(%ield alignment )adding
5rocessor* and com)iler*s)eci%ic

struct %har%har&nt { char c1; char c2; int i; } foo; foo.c1 = 'a'; foo.c2 = '('; foo.i = 0)D"AD$""#;

c1

c2

padding

!1

!2

"#

$"

AD

D"

x86 uses little-endian representation

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Ty)ede%
6echanism %or creating ne7 ty)e names
8e7 names are an alias %or some other ty)e 9m)roves clarity o% the )rogram ty*edef +on, int!-.t; ty*edef struct ADate { int month; int day; int year; } Date; int!-.t i = 100000000000; Date d = {9/ 1/ 2005}; Overload existing type names for clarity and portability

Simplify complex type names

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Structures and Unions

Constants
Allo7 consistent use o% the same constant throughout the )rogram
9m)roves clarity o% the )rogram 1educes likelihood o% sim)le errors :asier to u)date constants in the )rogram Constant names are Preprocessor capitalized by directive convention 4define 5&6" 10 Define once, use int array0101; int array05&6"1; throughout the program for (i=0; i210; i33 { for (i=0; i25&6"; i33 { } }
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Arrays o% Structures
Array declaration
Date (irthdays07#8&"7D51; (oo+ chec9.(irthday(Date today { int i; for (i = 0; i 2 7#8&"7D5; i33 { if ((today.month == (irthdays0i1.month (today.day == (irthdays0i1.day return (true ; } return (fa+se ; }
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Constant

Array index, then structure field

::

5ointers to Structures
Date create.date1(int month/ int day/ int year { Date d; d.month = month; d.day = day; d.year = year; return (d ; } ;oid create.date2(Date <d/ int month/ Pass-by-reference int day/ int year { d=>month = month; d=>day = day; d=>year = year; } Date today; today = create.date1(9/ -/ 200? ; create.date2(:today/ 9/ -/ 200? ;
9

Copies date

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Structures and Unions

5ointers to Structures "cont.#

;oid create.date2(Date <d/ int month/ int day/ int year { d=>month = month; d=>day = day; d=>year = year; } ;oid foo(;oid { Date today; create.date2(:today/ 9/ -/ 200? ; }
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x$ A# x$ A" x$ A x$ %#

year@ day@ month@ d@

200? 9 0)1000

x! x! x!

# "

today.year@ today.day@ today.month@

200? 9

Structures and Unions

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5ointers to Structures "cont.#

Date < create.dateA(int month/ int day/ int year { Date <d; d=>month = month; d=>day = day; d=>year = year; return (d ; }

&hat is d pointing to'('( )more on this later*

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Abstraction in C
From the #include file widget.h:
struct Bid,et; struct Bid,et <Bid,et.create(;oid ; int Bid,et.o*(struct Bid,et <Bid,et/ int o*erand ; ;oid Bid,et.destory(struct Bid,et <Bid,et ;

Definition is hidden(

From the file widget.c:

4inc+ude CBid,et.hD struct Bid,et { int ); };
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Collections o% (ools "(it ;ectors#

(yte- 7ord- ... can re)resent many booleans
&ne )er bit- e.g.- 00100101 3 %alse- %alse- true- ...- true

(it*7ise o)erations+
(it*7ise (it*7ise (it*7ise (it*7ise A8<+ &1+ 8&T+ =&1+ 00100101 : 10111100 00100101 E 10111100 F 00100101 00100101 G 10111100 == == == == 00100100 10111101 11011010 10011001

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&)erations on (it ;ectors

const unsi,ned int unsi,ned int +oB.three.(its.mas9 = 0)H; (it.;ec = 0)15; 000 0111 001 0101

A mask indicates +hich bit positions +e are interested in

Al+ays use C,s unsi,ned types for bit vectors

Selecting bitsim*ortant.(its = (it.;ec : +oB.three.(its.mas9;

.esult / '
000 0101 == 001 0101 : 000 0111

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&)erations on (it ;ectors

const unsi,ned int unsi,ned int +oB.three.(its.mas9 = 0)H; (it.;ec = 0)15; 000 0111 001 0101

Setting bits(it.;ec E= +oB.three.(its.mas9; 001 0111 == 001 0101 E 000 0111

.esult / '

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&)erations on (it ;ectors

const unsi,ned int unsi,ned int +oB.three.(its.mas9 = 0)H; (it.;ec = 0)15; 000 0111 001 0101

Clearing bits(it.;ec := F+oB.three.(its.mas9; 001 0000 == 001 0101 : F000 0111

.esult / '

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(it*%ield Structures
S)ecial syntax )acks structure values more tightly Similar to bit vectors- but arguably easier to read
8onetheless- bit vectors
struct #+a,s { int unsi,ned int unsi,ned int } foo; foo.f1 = =2; foo.f2 = 1; foo.fA = 2;

f1@A; f2@1; fA@2;

are more commonly used.

5added to be an integral number o% 7ords

5lacement is com)iler*

f1

f2

fA

s)eci%ic.

1 1 0 1 1 0

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Unions
Choices+ An element is
an int i or a char c
union An"+t { int i; char c; } e+t1/ e+t2; e+t1.i = -; e+t2.c = 'a'; e+t2.i = 0)D"AD$""#;

sizeof(union 3
maximum o% sizeof(%ield

padding

"#

$"
i

AD

D"

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Unions
A union value doesn.t >kno7? 7hich case it contains
union An"+t { int i; char c; } e+t1/ e+t2; e+t1.i = -; e+t2.c = 'a'; e+t2.i = 0)D"AD$""#; if (e+t1 currently has a char

?
0o+ should your program 1eep trac1 +hether e+t1, e+t2 hold an int or a char'

'

2asic ans+er- Another variable holds that info

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Tagged Unions
Tag every value 7ith its case 9.e.- )air the ty)e in%o together 7ith the union
9m)licit in ,ava- Scheme- 6L- 0

enum Inion.Ja, {&5.&7J/ &5.%KA8}; struct Ja,,edInion { enum Inion.Ja, ta,; union { int i; char c; } data; };
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3num must be external to struct, so constants are globally visible4

Struct field must be named4

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8ext Time
6emory Allocation

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