CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cstruct
Aesha Amoli
Aesha Amoli

Reputation: 107

Can a struct have several names?

I am a beginner in C language, so I was seeking for some projects. And I found a project named bank management system. I went through the code and find this weird struct. Can anybody explain me this code snippet and how to use this kind of structs.

struct {
    char name[60];
    int acc_no,age;
    char address[60];
    char citizenship[15];
    double phone;
    char acc_type[10];
    float amt;
    struct date dob;
    struct date deposit;
    struct date withdraw;
}add, upd, check, rem, transaction;  // What are those names? Are they several names for the `struct`?

And also this struct is in a function called menu. Can we use this struct in another function without passing it to function?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 92

Answers (2)

Sourav Ghosh
Sourav Ghosh

Reputation: 134316

Here add, upd, check, rem, transaction are all variables of that structure type. The structure itself has no name, also known as unnamed struct.

To elaborate, the syntax for a structure declaration is:

      struct-or-union-specifier:
              struct-or-union identifier(opt) { struct-declaration-list }

where you can see the identifier is optional. So we can have unnamed structs.

Upvotes: 2

the_bond_007
the_bond_007

Reputation: 137

As Sourav explained, add et al. are variables of type struct. This is usually discouraged if more definitions are required of this type.

If re-use of structs are intended, then a name needs to be mentioned while defining the struct, like the following:

struct foo {
  int a; etc.
} add, upd;

and then later,

struct foo check;

The scope of this definition is the same scope it is defined in. As you mentioned it is declared in a function, the scope of this is only that function.

Upvotes: 1

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