How to initialize a struct in accordance with C programming language standards

Question

I want to initialize a struct element, split in declaration and initialization. This is what I have:

typedef struct MY_TYPE {
  bool flag;
  short int value;
  double stuff;
} MY_TYPE;

void function(void) {
  MY_TYPE a;
  ...
  a = { true, 15, 0.123 }
}

Is this the way to declare and initialize a local variable of MY_TYPE in accordance with C programming language standards (C89, C90, C99, C11, etc.)? Or is there anything better or at least working?

Update I ended up having a static initialization element where I set every subelement according to my needs.

Answer 1

In (ANSI) C99, you can use a designated initializer to initialize a structure:

MY_TYPE a = { .flag = true, .value = 123, .stuff = 0.456 };

Other members are initialized as zero: "Omitted field members are implicitly initialized the same as objects that have static storage duration." (https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Designated-Inits.html)

Answer 2

You can do it with a compound literal. According to that page, it works in C99 (which also counts as ANSI C).

MY_TYPE a;

a = (MY_TYPE) { .flag = true, .value = 123, .stuff = 0.456 };
...
a = (MY_TYPE) { .value = 234, .stuff = 1.234, .flag = false };

The designations in the initializers are optional; you could also write:

a = (MY_TYPE) { true,  123, 0.456 };
...
a = (MY_TYPE) { false, 234, 1.234 };

Answer 3

I see you've already received an answer about ANSI C 99, so I'll throw a bone about ANSI C 89. ANSI C 89 allows you to initialize a struct this way:

typedef struct Item {
    int a;
    float b;
    char* name;
} Item;

int main(void) {
    Item item = { 5, 2.2, "George" };
    return 0;
}

An important thing to remember, at the moment you initialize even one object/ variable in the struct, all of its other variables will be initialized to default value.

If you don't initialize the values in your struct, all variables will contain "garbage values".

Good luck!

Answer 4

a = (MYTYPE){ true, 15, 0.123 };

would do fine in C99

Answer 5

You've almost got it...

MY_TYPE a = { true, 15, 0.123 };

Quick search on 'struct initialize c' shows me this

Answer 6

C programming language standard ISO/IEC 9899:1999 (commonly known as C99) allows one to use a designated initializer to initialize members of a structure or union as follows:

MY_TYPE a = { .stuff = 0.456, .flag = true, .value = 123 };

It is defined in paragraph 7, section 6.7.8 Initialization of ISO/IEC 9899:1999 standard as:

If a designator has the form
. identifier
then the current object (defined below) shall have structure or union type and the identifier shall be the name of a member of that type.

Note that paragraph 9 of the same section states that:

Except where explicitly stated otherwise, for the purposes of this subclause unnamed members of objects of structure and union type do not participate in initialization. Unnamed members of structure objects have indeterminate value even after initialization.

In GNU GCC implementation however omitted members are initialized as zero or zero-like type-appropriate value. As stated in section 6.27 Designated Initializers of GNU GCC documentation:

Omitted field members are implicitly initialized the same as objects that have static storage duration.

Microsoft Visual C++ compiler should support designated initializers since version 2013 according to official blog post C++ Conformance Roadmap. Paragraph Initializing unions and structs of Initializers article at MSDN Visual Studio documentation suggests that unnamed members initialized to zero-like appropriate values similarly to GNU GCC.

ISO/IEC 9899:2011 standard (commonly known as C11) which had superseded ISO/IEC 9899:1999 retains designated initializers under section 6.7.9 Initialization. It also retains paragraph 9 unchanged.

New ISO/IEC 9899:2018 standard (commonly known as C18) which had superseded ISO/IEC 9899:2011 retains designated initializers under section 6.7.9 Initialization. It also retains paragraph 9 unchanged.

Answer 7

as Ron Nuni said:

typedef struct Item {
    int a;
    float b;
    char* name;
} Item;

int main(void) {
    Item item = {5, 2.2, "George"};
    return 0;
}

An important thing to remember: at the moment you initialize even one object/variable in the struct, all of its other variables will be initialized to default value.

If you don't initialize the values in your struct (i.e. if you just declare that variable), all variable.members will contain "garbage values", only if the declaration is local!

If the declaration is global or static (like in this case), all uninitialized variable.members will be initialized automatically to:

• 0 for integers and floating point
• '\0' for char (of course this is just the same as 0, and char is an integer type)
• NULL for pointers.

Answer 8

Adding to All of these good answer a summary to how to initialize a structure (union and Array) in C, focused especially on the Designed Initializer.

Standard Initialization

struct point 
{
    double x;
    double y;
    double z;
}

p = {1.2, 1.3}; 

---

Designated Initializer

The Designated Initializer came up since the ISO C99 and is a different and more dynamic way to initialize in C when initializing struct, union or an array.

The biggest difference to standard initialization is that you don't have to declare the elements in a fixed order and you can also omit element.

From The GNU Guide:

Standard C90 requires the elements of an initializer to appear in a fixed order, the same as the order of the elements in the array or structure being initialized.

In ISO C99 you can give the elements in random order, specifying the array indices or structure field names they apply to, and GNU C allows this as an extension in C90 mode as well

---

Examples

1. Array Index

Standard Initialization

int a[6] = { 0, 0, 15, 0, 29, 0 };

Designated Initialization

int a[6] = {[4] = 29, [2] = 15 }; // or
int a[6] = {[4]29 , [2]15 }; // or
int widths[] = { [0 ... 9] = 1, [10 ... 99] = 2, [100] = 3 };

2. Struct or union:

Standard Initialization

struct point { int x, y; };

Designated Initialization

struct point p = { .y = 2, .x = 3 }; or
struct point p = { y: 2, x: 3 };

3. Combine naming elements with ordinary C initialization of successive elements:

Standard Initialization

int a[6] = { 0, v1, v2, 0, v4, 0 };

Designated Initialization

int a[6] = { [1] = v1, v2, [4] = v4 };

4. Others:

Labeling the elements of an array initializer

int whitespace[256] = { [' '] = 1, ['\t'] = 1, ['\h'] = 1,
                        ['\f'] = 1, ['\n'] = 1, ['\r'] = 1 };

write a series of ‘.fieldname’ and ‘[index]’ designators before an ‘=’ to specify a nested subobject to initialize

struct point ptarray[10] = { [2].y = yv2, [2].x = xv2, [0].x = xv0 };

---

Guides

• designated-initializers-c | geeksforgeeks.org
• using-designated-initializers
• tutorialspoint.com | designated-initializers-in-c

Answer 9

This can be done in different ways:

MY_TYPE a = { true, 1, 0.1 };

MY_TYPE a = { .stuff = 0.1, .flag = true, .value = 1 }; //designated initializer, not available in c++

MY_TYPE a;
a = (MY_TYPE) { true,  1, 0.1 };

MY_TYPE m (true, 1, 0.1); //works in C++, not available in C

Also, you can define member while declaring structure.

#include <stdio.h>

struct MY_TYPE
{
    int a;
    int b;
}m = {5,6};

int main()
{
    printf("%d  %d\n",m.a,m.b);    
    return 0;
}

Answer 10

I didn't like any of these answers so I made my own. I don't know if this is ANSI C or not, it's just GCC 4.2.1 in it's default mode. I never can remember the bracketing so I start with a subset of my data and do battle with compiler error messages until it shuts up. Readability is my first priority.

// in a header:
typedef unsigned char uchar;

struct fields {
  uchar num;
  uchar lbl[35];
};

// in an actual c file (I have 2 in this case)
struct fields labels[] = {
  {0, "Package"},
  {1, "Version"},
  {2, "Apport"},
  {3, "Architecture"},
  {4, "Bugs"},
  {5, "Description-md5"},
  {6, "Essential"},
  {7, "Filename"},
  {8, "Ghc-Package"},
  {9, "Gstreamer-Version"},
  {10, "Homepage"},
  {11, "Installed-Size"},
  {12, "MD5sum"},
  {13, "Maintainer"},
  {14, "Modaliases"},
  {15, "Multi-Arch"},
  {16, "Npp-Description"},
  {17, "Npp-File"},
  {18, "Npp-Name"},
  {19, "Origin"}
};

The data may start life as a tab-delimited file that you search-replace to massage into something else. Yes, this is Debian stuff. So one outside pair of {} (indicating the array), then another pair for each struct inside. With commas between. Putting things in a header isn't strictly necessary, but I've got about 50 items in my struct so I want them in a separate file, both to keep the mess out of my code and so it's easier to replace.

Answer 11

void function(void) {
  MY_TYPE a;
  a.flag = true;
  a.value = 15;
  a.stuff = 0.123;
}

Answer 12

I found another way to initialize structs.

The struct:

typedef struct test {
    int num;
    char* str;
} test;

Initialization:

test tt = {
    num: 42,
    str: "nice"
};

As per GCC’s documentation, this syntax is obsolete since GCC 2.5.

Answer 13

If MS has not updated to C99, MY_TYPE a = { true,15,0.123 };

Answer 14

Structure in C can be declared and initialized like this:

typedef struct book
{
    char title[10];
    char author[10];
    float price;
} book;

int main() {
    book b1={"DS", "Ajay", 250.0};

    printf("%s \t %s \t %f", b1.title, b1.author, b1.price);

    return 0;
}

Answer 15

I have read the Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Documentation for Initializing Aggregate Types yet, all forms of initializing with {...} are explained there, but the initializing with dot, named ''designator'' isn't mentioned there. It does not work also.

The C99 standard chapter 6.7.8 Initialization explains the possibility of designators, but in my mind it is not really clear for complex structs. The C99 standard as pdf .

In my mind, it may be better to

1. Use the = {0};-initialization for all static data. It is less effort for the machine code.

2. Use macros for initializing, for example

   typedef MyStruct_t{ int x, int a, int b; } MyStruct; define INIT_MyStruct(A,B) { 0, A, B}

The macro can be adapted, its argument list can be independent of changed struct content. It is proper if less elements should be initialized. It is also proper for nested struct. 3. A simple form is: Initialize in a subroutine:

void init_MyStruct(MyStruct* thiz, int a, int b) {
  thiz->a = a; thiz->b = b; }

This routine looks like ObjectOriented in C. Use thiz, not this to compile it with C++ too!

MyStruct data = {0}; //all is zero!
init_MyStruct(&data, 3, 456);

Answer 16

I've been looking for a nice way to initialize my struct, and I've got to using the below (C99). This lets me initialize either a single structure or an array of structures in the same way as plain types.

typedef struct {
    char *str;
    size_t len;
    jsmntok_t *tok;
    int tsz;
} jsmn_ts;

#define jsmn_ts_default (jsmn_ts){NULL, 0, NULL, 0}

This can be used in the code as:

jsmn_ts mydata = jsmn_ts_default; /* initialization of a single struct */

jsmn_ts myarray[10] = {jsmn_ts_default, jsmn_ts_default}; /* initialization of
                                                    first 2 structs in the array */