C StructuresLesson 38Free preview

C Structs & Pointers

This lesson is part of C · All levels

Summary

Often struct is sent via pointer so that it is not necessary to copy the entire contents into the function's memory. To access the member through a pointer, an arrow operator is used, e.g. p->nilai, which is equivalent to (*p).nilai but more concise and not prone to parenthesis misplacement. This pattern forms the basis for implementing data structures such as linked lists and trees in C.

Key points

ptr->member is an abbreviation of (*ptr).member to access a member via a pointer.
Sending a pointer to a function saves memory and allows the function to change the original data.
Use &obj to get the address of a struct when you refer it to a function.
Make sure the pointer points to a valid struct before de-referencing, otherwise the program could crash.
A pointer to a struct can be a member of a struct, for example the next pointer in a linked-list node.

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