ICT 107

Data Structures and Algorithms

Structures (Part 1)

1
 Topics
• Structures
– What are they?
– What are they good for?
• typedef
• I/O
• Structs and functions

2
 Structures
• Arrays hold many elements of the same type
• What happens if we want to keep a few
things together that are of different types?
• For example, the title, artist and price of the
CDs in a shop
• Or name and telephone number
• Or name, ID number, and mark

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 Structures
• For a limited number of elements
• Of varying types
• Which need to be kept together, in one
place
• We can use a structure
• Like a box, with compartments for different
things
4
 Structures
• Like a briefcase, which has compartments
for different shaped things
• Or a cutlery drawer which has different
sections for teaspoons, knives, forks and
spoons
• Can you think of more examples?

5
 Structures
• In C, a structure is known as a struct
• It contains a fixed number of parts, which
may be of different types
• So for a friend, you may want to store
name, phone number and the street they live
in

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 Declaring Structures
struct friendStr Every struct
needs a name
{
char name[MAXNAME];
Parts of the
long phoneNumber; struct are known
char street[MAXSTREET]; as members
};
This declares a
type of structure,
but it does not
create a variable 7
 Declaring structures
• To create a structure in computer memory,
you need to declare a structure variable, like
this:
struct friendStr sarah;

name of name of the

the type variable
8
 Accessing structures
• To access a member of a structure, you use
the '.' operator, like this:
struct friendStr sarah;
gives you
sarah.name access to the
sarah.phoneNumber value of
sarah's name
sarah.street

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 Initialising structures
struct friendStr
{
char name[MAXNAME];
long phoneNumber;
char street[MAXSTREET];
};
struct friendStr sarah;
scanf("%s",sarah.name);
scanf("%ld",&sarah.phoneNumber);
scanf("%s",sarah.street);

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 Accessing structures
struct friendStr sarah;
scanf("%s",sarah.name);
scanf("%ld",&sarah.phoneNumber);
scanf("%s",sarah.street);

printf("Name is %s\n",sarah.name);
printf("Phone is %d\n",sarah.phoneNumber);
printf("Street is %s\n",sarah.street);

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 Accessing structures
• A member of a structure is just like any other
variable
• If it's a string, it's just an ordinary string
• If it's an int, it's just an ordinary int
• EXCEPT that you access them using the name of
the struct variable, AND the name of the member:

• sarah.phoneNumber = 55559999;
• strcpy(sarah.name,"Sarah Finch");
• strcpy(sarah.street,"Firthsmith St");
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 Accessing structures
• If you want to declare a lot of structs, using
"struct name" all the time is awkward:
struct friendStr sarah;
struct friendStr tony;
struct friendStr quinn;
struct friendStr gunalwan;
struct friendStr fong;

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 typedef
• Instead, we can give the struct type a shorter
name, like this:
struct friendStr
{
char name[MAXNAME];
long phoneNumber;
char street[MAXSTREET];
};
typedef struct friendStr friend;

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 typedef
• Now we can use friend everywhere we
used to use struct friendStr
• typedef struct friendStr friend;
• friend sarah;
• friend tony;
• friend quinn;
• friend gunalwan;
• friend fong;

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 typedef
• All we have done is told the compiler:
• "every time you see friend, I really mean
struct friendStr."
• In the same way we use symbolic constant
declarations like "#define SIZE 20" to
tell the compiler:
• "every time you see SIZE, I really mean
20."

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 typedef
• The other way to use typedef is shorter, like
this:
typedef struct {
char name[MAXNAME];
long phoneNumber;
char street[MAXSTREET];
}friend ;

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 Common Mistake
struct StudentRec
{
char lastname[MAXLEN];
float mark;
};

Do not forget the

semicolon here!

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 Notes on structs
• struct variables cannot be compared
• We can perform member comparisons only
if (studA == studB)
{
printf(“Duplicate data.\n”);
}

if (strcmp(studA.lastname, studB.lastname) == 0
&& (studA.mark == studB.mark) )
{
printf(“Duplicate data.\n”);
}
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 Notes on structs (cont)
• We can define a struct, and declare instances
of that struct

struct StudentRec
{
char lastname[MAXLEN];
float mark;
};
struct StudentRec studA, studB, class[MAXN];

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 typedef
• A typedef statement makes an identifier
equivalent to a type specification
struct StudentRec
Example {
without char lastname[MAXLEN];
typedef float mark;
};

struct StudentRec studentA;

struct StudentRec class[MAXN];
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 typedef (cont)
• The typedef statement makes an
identifier equivalent to a type specification
struct StudentRec
{
Example char lastname[MAXLEN];
with float mark;
typedef };
typedef struct StudentRec Student;

Student studA;
Student class[MAXN];

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 Example with typedef (testing)
#include <stdio.h>
#define MAXLEN 50
struct StudentRec
{
char lastname[MAXLEN];
float mark;
};
typedef struct StudentRec Student;
int main()
{
Student studA;
Student studB;

printf("Enter last name and mark for student A: ");

scanf("%s %f", studA.lastname, &(studA.mark));
printf("Enter last name and mark for student B: ");
scanf("%s %f", studB.lastname, &(studB.mark));

printf("Student A: %s\t%f\n", studA.lastname, studA.mark);

printf("Student B: %s\t%f\n", studB.lastname, studB.mark);

return 0;
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}
 Example with typedef-1
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

#define MAXLEN 50
#define MAXN 20

struct StudentRec
{
char lastname[MAXLEN];
float mark;
};

typedef struct StudentRec Student;

int main()
{
int count = 0;
Student class[MAXN];
int i;

printf("How many students? ");

scanf("%d", &count); 24
 Example with typedef-2
if (count > MAXN)
{
printf("Not enough space.\n");
exit(1);
}
for (i=0; i < count; i++)
{
printf("Enter last name and mark: ");
scanf("%s %f", class[i].lastname, &(class[i].mark) );
}

printf("\nClass list:\n\n");
for (i=0; i < count; i++)
{
printf("Last name: %s\n", class[i].lastname);
printf(" Mark: %.1f\n\n", class[i].mark);
}

return 0;
}
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