using malloc for structure

Hi all,

I'm not new to programming, just new to c :(

Am I correct in assuming that the following two code snippets do exactly the same thing? If not, please tell! If so, why would you use one over the other...

Code:

---

typedef struct tMyStruct{
  int somenumber;
} tMyStruct;

void main( void ){
  tMyStruct anInstance;

  anInstance.somenumber = 5;
}

---

Code:

---

typedef struct tMyStruct{
  int somenumber;
} tMyStruct;

void main( void ){
  tMyStruct *anInstance;

  anInstance  = malloc( sizeof(tMyStruct) );
  anInstance.somenumber = 5;
  free(anInstance);
}

---

Cheers,
Pea

> void main( void ){
int main

> anInstance.somenumber = 5;
Use the arrow operator when you have a pointer to a structure
anInstance->somenumber = 5;

Other than that, looking good.

malloc()'ing space for a struct is especially useful any time that you don't know how many struct instances you're going to need, just like the reason for using malloc() with any other data type. It's really useful for things like linked lists.