Question

struct SampleStruct {
   int a;
   int b;
   float c;
   double d;
   short e;       
};

For an array like this, I used to initialize it as below:

struct SampleStruct sStruct = {0};

I would like to know when I declare array of this structure, I thought this will be correct

struct SampleStruct sStructs[3] = {{0},{0},{0}};

But, below also got accepted by the compiler

struct SampleStruct sStructs[3] = {0};

I would like to know the best and safe way and detailed reason why so.

Answer 1

$ gcc --version
gcc (GCC) 4.6.1 20110819 (prerelease)

If using -Wall option, my gcc gives me warnings about the third one:

try.c:11:9: warning: missing braces around initializer [-Wmissing-braces]
try.c:11:9: warning: (near initialization for ‘sStruct3[0]’) [-Wmissing-braces]

indicating that you should write = {{0}} for initialization, which set the first field of the first struct to 0 and all the rest to 0 implicitly. The program gives correct result in this simple case, but I think you shouldn’t rely on this and need to initialize things properly.