Question

if (sale->taxStatus[i] = "y")  // line 44

yields error:

y.cpp:44:12: error: request for member taxStatus in sale, which is of non-class type Sale*

My struct:

struct Sale {
    int quantity[MAX_SALES];
    float unitPrice[MAX_SALES];
    char taxStatus[MAX_SALES]; // MAX_SALES = 10
};

the full function:

void total(struct Sale sale[], int sales) {

    int i = 0;
    float subTotal, hst, total = 0;

    for (i = 0; i < sales; i++) {
        subTotal = subTotal + (sale->quantity[i] * sale->unitPrice[i]);
        if (sale->taxStatus[i] = "y")
        {
            hst = hst + ((sale->quantity[i] * sale->unitPrice[i]) * 0.13);
        }
    }

    cout << "\n" << "Subtotal  : " << subTotal << endl;   
    cout << "HST (13%) : " << hst;   
}

Answer 1

if (sale->taxStatus[i] == 'y')

As @jweyrich and @AustinPhillips also pointed out that you need double equal sign ( == ) and chars are compared in single quotes.

single equal sign ( = ) is used to assign value.

e.g. s = 5;

double equal sign ( == ) is used to check equality of two or more than two values.

e.g. if( s == d && d== e && e == f && f == b ) { };

equal sign with exclamation mark ( != ) is used to check inequality of two or more than two values.

e.g. if( s != d && d != e && e != f && f != b ) { };