Bad Habbit? (variable management)

**Taikon** · 06-30-2005

Ive noticed over the last several programs Ive written for skill building that I have certain tendencies when managing data within a program.

The biggest one that seems like a horrible habbit is my use of structures.

for example if I have 5 objects that are all similar I would throw them all in a single structure and pass them back and forth throughout the program in order to keep track of everything and make it a little bit easier (in my mind at least) to write code to manipulate.

I think it stems from only being able to return 1 value from a function. For some reason I don't want to declare anything as a global variable unless I absolutely have to for some reason.

Code:

 
struct SimilarData{
	int group1;
	int group1;
	int group2;
	int group2;
	int group3;
	int group3;
}

etc...

and then pass the entire structure to any module that uses it and then pass it back.

That really seems wrong though.

Would it be better to make it a little bit harder to read and do it in individual structures

Code:

 
struct group1
{
	int group1;
	int group1;
}
 
struct group2
{
	int group2;
	int group2;
}

or just do them all as a single variable or in an array?

**quzah** · 06-30-2005

It really depends on what you need. A structure works fine if they're groups of mixed types. For items of the same type, an array works fine. Or perhaps an array of structures.

Quzah.

**mitakeet** · 06-30-2005

I would use an array with enums as indexes like this:

Code:

enum {
    enuArr1 = 0,
    enuArr2,
    enuArr3,
    enuArr4,
    enuArr5,
    enuLAST
};

struct DATA{
    int arr[enuLAST];
};

int main() {
    struct DATA dat;
    int i;

    for (i=0; i<enuLAST; i++)
        dat.arr[i] = 0;

    dat.arr[enuArr4] = 123;

    return 0;
}

In a little program like this it is silly, but crank this up to a 50,000 line program and all the sudden it becomes self-documenting.

**quzah** · 06-30-2005

Your enumeration I don't like, because you are subscripting an array with enumerations that don't follow standard subscripting. (IE: You start at 1 where arrays start indexing at 0.) It doesn't follow standard convention, so it's a bit confusing at a glance to just see the line:

Code:

foo[ enumeration3 ] = 2;

Quzah.

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