How to Declare a Pointer to a Struct in C? - Coding

Structure (or structs) in the C programming language provides a way to combine variables of several data types under one name and pointers provide a means of storing memory addresses. In this article, we will learn how to declare such a pointer to a struct in C.

Declaration of Pointer to Struct in C

To declare a pointer to a struct we can use the struct keyword. First, define a structure then declare a pointer to that structure using the below syntax and that pointer can be used to allocate and access memory for the structure.

Syntax of Declaring Pointer to Struct

struct StructName *ptr ;
or
struct {
    // struct members
} *ptr ;

C Program to Declare Pointer to Struct

The below example demonstrates declaration of pointer to a structure.

C++

// C Program to show how to declare and use pointer to 
// structure 
  
#include <stdio.h> 
#include <stdlib.h> 
  
// Define a struct named Point with x and y coordinates 
struct Point { 
    int x; 
    int y; 
}; 
  
int main() 
{ 
    // Declare a pointer to a Point struct 
    struct Point* ptr; 
  
    // Allocate memory for a Point struct using malloc 
    ptr = (struct Point*)malloc(sizeof(struct Point)); 
  
    // Assign values to the x and y coordinates 
    ptr->x = 10; 
    ptr->y = 20; 
  
    // Print the coordinates 
    printf("Coordinates: (%d, %d)\n", ptr->x, ptr->y); 
  
    // Free the allocated memory 
    free(ptr); 
  
    return 0; 
}

Output

Coordinates: (10, 20)

To know more, refer to the article – Structure Pointer in C

Reffered: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org

C Language

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