Assign struct values

[Jamesbch]

Hello everyone,

I find C not very flexible this time because I know there is an easy way to assign field values to a struct like this :

Struct mine = { field1, field2, ... };

but in my case "mine" is contained in a bigger struct. So I have to assign let's say a field named data but it seems I cannot do :

parent->data = { field1, field2, ... };

Moreover data in my case is an array to full with these Struct. I wish I could simply do :

unsigned int i = 0;
parent->data[i++] = { field1, field2, ... };
parent->data[i++] = { field1, field2, ... };
// etc...

Is there any nice way to do it in C ? I can't understand why there is this kind of limitation ! The type are specified, there isn't any pointer but only memory assignment to do. Note that these fieldN are hard coded. Thank you.

[Adak]

I don't believe there is a problem doing this, you're not bringing your pointers or member operator on down to the right level.

Using the dot operator, I would say:

parent.nameOfField.nameOfChildStruct.fieldIwant

You can do the same idea with pointers, of course.

[Jamesbch]

Using the dot operator force me to copy and paste many times the same things. It's redundant, heavy, unreadable and not easily maintained. I prefer something as ugly as this :

unsigned int i = 0;
Struct A = { field1, field2, ... };
parent->data[i++] = A;
Struct B = {field1, field2, ... };
parent->data[i++] = B;
// And so on ...

But I would prefer something better. Has anyone an ingenious idea ?

[Adak]

When you declare nested structs, you can expect some redundancy in your code.

I'm thinking use something like:
#define PARENT and then put in all the outer structs and fields you need, so only
PARENT->YourSubStuctureFieldName would be all you need to access that nested field or struct.

How does that sound?