Question

Neither of these snippets of code work:

int main() {
    struct mystruct {
        int a;
        char* b;
        char* c;
    } e,f;
    e = {5, "blaat", "boe"};

    return 0;
}

Error: syntax error for ‘{‘ token

int main() {
    struct mystruct {
        int a;
        char* b;
        char* c;
    } e,f;
    struct mystruct e = {5, "blaat", "boe"};

    return 0;
}

Error: previous declaration of ‘e’ was here

What is the correct way to do this?

Answer 1

Compound literal assignment is new with C99, and the syntax would be

e = (struct mystruct) {5, "blaat", "boe"};

The cast expression is required.

In C89, you either have to initialize e as part of the declaration:

struct mystruct {int a; char *b; char *c} e = {5, "blaat", "boe"};

or

struct mystruct e = {5, "blaat", "boe"};

or you have to assign members individually:

struct mystruct e;
e.a = 5;
e.b = "blaat";
e.c = "boe";