Question

An Array of structs

Asked by: iismatt

Guys (and girls),

Two questions.  Basically, I want to design an array of structs in C.  And in these structs I want dynamic string allocation.  I'm having major problems implementing this in the C language.  Can anyone tell me where I'm going wrong?

My code would look something like this...

Struct {
char myString[];
} myStruct;

myStruct arrayOfStructs[10];

Without even taking the dynamic strings within the structs into account, I can't get my program to recognize myStruct as a valid type.  What am I missing?

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Asked On
2005-04-10 at 19:25:56ID21383561
Tags

array

,

structs

,

c

Topic

C Programming Language

Participating Experts
3
Points
250
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: efnPosted on 2005-04-10 at 19:34:03ID: 13750029

You can't have an array of indeterminate size in a structure.  The usual approach would be to put a pointer in the structure and set the pointer to point to some dynamically allocated memory.

 

by: AxterPosted on 2005-04-10 at 19:35:37ID: 13750040

Hi iismatt,
Try the following:
typedef struct{
    char myString[99];
} myStruct;

myStruct arrayOfStructs[10];


David Maisonave :-)
Cheers!

 

by: VolatileVoidPosted on 2005-04-10 at 19:37:49ID: 13750046

>>>
You can't have an array of indeterminate size in a structure.  The usual approach would be to put a pointer in the structure and set the pointer to point to some dynamically allocated memory.
>>>
char[] myString; is syntactically equivalent to char* myString;

the s in "struct" must be lowercase. Axter's post has the syntax you're looking for. :)

If you want to use your approach of char[] myString, you're going to need to allocate memory individually for each pointer using malloc/calloc.

 

by: AxterPosted on 2005-04-10 at 19:39:35ID: 13750051

The keyword struct needs to be lowercase.

You can either do a typedef as in my above example, or you need to use the keyword struct when you declare a variable of that type.
Example:
struct myStruct2{
      char myString[99];
};

struct myStruct2 arrayOfStructs2[10];

You could also declare a single instance of struct via following method:
struct{
      char myString[99];
} myStruct3;

The above is a single instance of a struct which declares the type, and the variable name for it (myStruct3).

 

by: VolatileVoidPosted on 2005-04-10 at 19:40:51ID: 13750055

Ah, wait, my apologies to efn.
char myString[]; is an invalid declaration in C, but for some reason if you put that inside of a struct declaration, it compiles; in that case I think char myString[] IS equivalent to char* myString; but I'm not 100% positive.

 

by: AxterPosted on 2005-04-10 at 19:44:42ID: 13750069

Example usage with pointer, as previous experts have suggested.
#include <memory.h>

typedef struct{
      char *myString;
      int string_size;
} myStruct;

myStruct arrayOfStructs[10];

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
      int i;
      for(i = 0;i < sizeof(arrayOfStructs) / sizeof(arrayOfStructs[0]);++i)
      {
            arrayOfStructs[i].myString = malloc(123);
            arrayOfStructs[i].string_size = 123;
            memset(arrayOfStructs[i].myString, 0, arrayOfStructs[i].string_size);
      }

 

by: AxterPosted on 2005-04-10 at 19:48:07ID: 13750082

>>char myString[]; is an invalid declaration in C, but for some reason if you put that inside of a struct declaration, it compiles; in that case I think char myString[] IS
>>equivalent to char* myString; but I'm not 100% positive.

That depends on your compiler.  It doesn't compile on MS VC++ 6.0, but it does compile on GNU 3.x and Bordland 5.5.1.

 

by: iismattPosted on 2005-04-10 at 20:03:24ID: 13750120

OK.  This is great.  I got it.  Thanks guys.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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