C Programming Lesson - Array of Structures in C Programming
By rajkishor09
Welcome back my readers; in this tutorial I am going to explain Arrays of Structures. This tutorial is advancement to my previous topic“Structure at Work”; if you missed the basic of structure then you can read it here.
Let’s start with Arrays of Structures; arrays of structures mean collection of structures, in other word array storing different type of structure member variables. Arrays of Structures are one of the interesting topics for C programmer because it has power of two powerful data types; Structure and Array.
Please take a look at following image.
In above image, cell size does not represent actual byte taken by variables. Same color cells represent structure whereas each cell represents each member variable of structure.
Let's have above example in real code. Below is a product structure containing same member variables as in above example image has.
1. struct product
2. {
3. char name[30];
4. int stock;
5. float price, discount;
6. };
We have now a product structure which consist four member variables name, stock, price and discount. We can now either create structure variables to store 2 or more product information, or we can declare arrays of structures.C Programming Books
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#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
struct product
{
char name[30];
int stock;
float price, discount;
};
void main()
{
struct product p[3];
int i;
float temp;
clrscr();
for(i=0;i<3;i++)
{
printf("Enter product name :");
gets(p[i].name);
printf("\nEnter Stock :");
scanf("%d",&p[i].stock);
printf("\nEnter Price :");
scanf("%f",&temp);
p[i].price = temp;
printf("\nEnter Discount :");
scanf("%f",&temp);
p[i].discount = temp;
printf("\n\n");
fflush(stdin);
}
clrscr();
for(i=0;i<3;i++)
{
printf("Name=%s, Stock=%d, Price=$%.2f, Discount=%.2f%.\n", p[i].name, p[i].stock, p[i].price,p[i].discount);
}
getch();
}Output of above program
Code Explanation
Once again, above program lets you to store information about 3 different products. Product information contains product name, stock, price and discount on purchase. From line no. 4 – 9 declares product structure. Line no 14 declares an array of structure which can store 3 products you increase or decrease its capacity by replacing 3 by any positive integer.
Line no. 13 – 37 accepts data for products from user and stores it to structure. As you can see this block begins with for loop. As I already told you that it’s an array of structure, so to loop through array I have used for loop. This for loop will loop only 3 times as we have declared product structure variable to store 3 products information. If you want to store more product information say 100 products then you must change 3 to 100 on lines 11, 15 & 31.
Now carefully understand how to store values in array of structure.
As you can see in line no. 14 we declared product structure variable p[3]. This means we have three structures in an array p[0], p[1] and p[2]. Above image represents the same. So to store data in first index of structure variable (i.e. p[0]) we can write following lines:
gets(p[0].name);
scanf("%d",&p[0].stock);
scanf("%f",&p[0].price);
scanf("%f",&p[0].discount);
Above style for storing data is good for storing information of 1 or2 products but if you have 100s of product then you should use because it is very convenient and if don’t have to write lengthy code to do same job. That’s why to store information of 3 products I used for loop.
Now it’s time to display stored data in p structure variable. Here also I have used for loop which loops for 3 times. So to display data in first index of structure variable (i.e. p[0]) we can write following lines:
printf("%s”, p[0].name);
printf("%d”, p[0].stock);
printf("%.2f”, p[0].price);
printf("%.2f", p[0].discount);
I hope you enjoyed and learnt something from this tutorial. You can download source code of array of structure program from below link.
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Thanks
Good Effort
good pgm
IT IS VERY SIMPLE PROGRAM IN C LANGUAGE.
Its a big help for me as a beginner.
tnx..i learned a lot..
but i didnt get y we have to read input like given below:
printf("\nEnter Price :");
scanf("%f",&temp);
p[i].price = temp;
printf("\nEnter Discount :");
scanf("%f",&temp);
p[i].discount = temp;
y cant v use scanf("%f",&p[i].price);
please explain me.............
plz sir fflush(stdin) means meaningfull answer and use the
fflush(stdin) plz replay.
but i didnt get y we have to read input like given below:
printf("\nEnter Price :");
scanf("%f",&temp);
p[i].price = temp;
printf("\nEnter Discount :");
scanf("%f",&temp);
p[i].discount = temp;
y cant v use scanf("%f",&p[i].price);
please explain me.............
One of the best hubs on Arrays .... great job .... kindly post on Java more thanks .....
nicomp 23 months ago
Good stuff about structures and arrays. Indexing starts are zero in C/C++ arrays.