C structs meet most definitions of what a "record" is. About the only thing you could add would be the ability to have dynamic sized arrays in a struct, but that's difficult to do in a fully compiled language like C.
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C struct types vs. higher level types
Hi,
What’s the difference between C struct types and higher-level language records? I don't know what's higher level than C, like Java perhaps, or Scheme? Any examples?
Thanks
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Answers
I don't know if this is right but this is my best guess?
In SQL a record is just a collection of data that has no 'type'.
In C, you are declaring a concrete type with a struct, so it can be both a type and also a collection of data at the same time.
Besides that, I see no difference!
Any thoughts?
Thanks
A struct can contain other structs but records and tables cannot contain other records or tables. Tables can contain foreign keys which are basically pointers to other tables.
In Java, C++ and other OO languages, there are classes where properties (member variables) and member functions are marked:
public - everyone can see it
protected - only inherited ones can see it
private protected - (does not exist in C++) public within the library, private otherwise
private - local within the class
A struct in C++ is just a class where everything is public. In C#, classes and structs are the same except that classes are created on the heap and structs on the stack. Someone in MS obviously really wanted to mess up C++ programmers.
Inheritence and virtual function mechanisms can be simulated using C structs. All you need to look at is the code generated by CFront (C++ front end in C when no C++ compilers existed) to see what can be done with structs in C.
Data in a C struct is just a piece of memory that gets it's meaning only because the program code uses it in a certain way and the program usually 'posses' the physical representation of the data.
Data in a database has context, which allows the database to do some fancy things, like building indexes or enforcing constraints. The data strorage is managed by the database and the user/program gets only a copy of it but cannot alter the data representation directly. A database can thus provide transaction control and manage access rights.
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by: x4uPosted on 2006-12-17 at 17:50:53ID: 18156291
When professors, teachers or books talk about higher level languages and do not mean a imperative programming language with it they often refer to so called 3rd generation languages like SQL.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
Besides that a record is a general term for a well defined set of composed data and a C struct is one way to represent this in the C programming language.