Pointers in Structures in C
C language – Pointers in Structures
In C, a pointer is a variable that stores the memory address of another variable. A pointers in structures in C is a user-defined data type that consists of a collection of variables of different data types.
You can use pointers in structures in C to reference the memory location of a structure variable.
Pointer in Structures in C
Here is an example of how you might declare a structure and a pointer to it in C:
struct Student {
char name[30];
int age;
float grade;
};
struct Student *ptr;
To access the members of a structure using a pointer, you can use the “arrow” operator (->). For example:
ptr->name; // accesses the "name" member of the structure pointed to by "ptr" ptr->age; // accesses the "age" member of the structure pointed to by "ptr" ptr->grade; // accesses the "grade" member of the structure pointed to by "ptr"
You can also use the “dot” operator (.) to access the members of a structure, but this requires that you have the actual structure variable rather than just a pointer to it. For example:
struct Student s; s.name; // accesses the "name" member of the structure "s" s.age; // accesses the "age" member of the structure "s" s.grade; // accesses the "grade" member of the structure "s"
Pointers to structures can be useful when you want to pass a structure to a function by reference (i.e., modify the structure within the function) or when you want to create an array of structures and access the elements using pointers.
Pass a pointer to the structure to the function:
#include <stdio.h>
struct Point {
int x;
int y;
};
void printPoint(struct Point *p) {
printf("(%d, %d)\n", p->x, p->y);
}
int main() {
struct Point p = {1, 2};
printPoint(&p);
return 0;
}
Output
(1, 2)
In this example, the printPoint function takes a pointer to a struct Point as an argument. The -> operator is used to access the members of the structure through the pointer.
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