C Programming Tutorial
Nested structure in c language can have another structure as a member. There are two ways to define nested structure in c language
- By separate structure
- By Embedded structure
1) Separate structure
We can create 2 structures, but dependent structure should be used inside the main structure as a member. Let's see the code of nested structure.
struct Date
{
int dd;
int mm;
int yyyy;
};
struct Employee
{
int id;
char name[20];
struct Date doj;
}emp1;
As you can see, doj (date of joining) is the variable of type Date. Here doj is used as a member in Employee structure. In this way, we can use Date structure in many structures.
2) Embedded structure
We can define structure within the structure also. It requires less code than previous way. But it can't be used in many structures.
struct Employee
{
int id;
char name[20];
struct Date
{
int dd;
int mm;
int yyyy;
}doj;
}emp1;
Accessing Nested Structure
We can access the member of nested structure by Outer_Structure.Nested_Structure.member as given below
e1.doj.dd
e1.doj.mm
e1.doj.yyyy
C Nested Structure example
Let's see a simple example of nested structure in C language.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
struct Employee
{
int id;
char name[20];
struct Date
{
int dd;
int mm;
int yyyy;
}doj;
}e1;
int main( )
{
//storing employee information
e1.id=101;
strcpy(e1.name, "Rama");//copying string into char array
e1.doj.dd=09;
e1.doj.mm=10;
e1.doj.yyyy=2018;
//printing first employee information
printf( "employee id : %d\n", e1.id);
printf( "employee name : %s\n", e1.name);
printf( "employee date of joining (dd/mm/yyyy) : %d/%d/%d\n", e1.doj.dd,e1.doj.mm,e1.doj.yyyy);
return 0;
}
Output:
employee id : 101
employee name : Rama
employee date of joining (dd/mm/yyyy) : 09/10/2018
