Nested Structures Possible?

Is it possible to make nested structures? I'm trying to do this with the following code, but it just doesn't compile

Code:

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;


struct animals{
	struct insects;
	struct fish;
	struct mammals;
};

struct insects{
	char moths[40];
	char beatles[40];
	char crickets[40];
};


int main(){
	
	animals A;
	A.insects B;
	
	return 0;
}

Moved to the C++ programming board.

For one thing, the structs fish and mammals do not exist. The next problem is that you did not provide any names for your member variables. It is as if you wrote:

Code:

struct Example {
    int;
    char;
    double;
};

The code below produces the following compilation error:

nestedStruct.cpp:30: error: expected primary-expression before '.' token
nestedStruct.cpp:30: error: expected ';' before "B"

My actual purpose in this is to generate a "tree data structure."

Code:

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;


struct animals{
	struct insects;
	struct fish;
	struct mammals;
};

struct insects{
	char moths[40];
	char beatles[40];
	char crickets[40];
};

struct fish{
	char bass[40];
	char shark[40];
};

struct mammals{
	char gopher[40];
	char elephant[40];
};

int main(){
	
	animals A;
	animals.insects B;
	
	return 0;
}

My actual purpose in this is to generate a "tree data structure."

What do you mean? It looks as if you want to use inheritance.

The closest that I can see to correcting your errors is:

Code:

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;

struct Insects {
    char moths[40];
    char beatles[40];
    char crickets[40];
};

struct Fish {
    char bass[40];
    char shark[40];
};

struct Mammals {
    char gopher[40];
    char elephant[40];
};

struct Animals {
    Insects insects;
    Fish    fish;
    Mammals mammals;
};

int main() {
    Animals a;
    // a.insects is an Insect struct.
}

But this is just composition: an Animals object has a Insects object.

Code:

struct animals{
	struct insects;
	struct fish;
	struct mammals;
};

It looks like animals contains only forward declarations of other classes.

You should move it after you have all those structs declared and then declare actual instances of those as members of struct animals.

Originally Posted by laserlight

What do you mean? It looks as if you want to use inheritance.

The closest that I can see to correcting your errors is:

Code:

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;

struct Insects {
    char moths[40];
    char beatles[40];
    char crickets[40];
};

struct Fish {
    char bass[40];
    char shark[40];
};

struct Mammals {
    char gopher[40];
    char elephant[40];
};

struct Animals {
    Insects insects;
    Fish    fish;
    Mammals mammals;
};

int main() {
    Animals a;
    // a.insects is an Insect struct.
}

But this is just composition: an Animals object has a Insects object.

What I really want to do is dynamically generate a tree structure.

What I can't seem to do in the above code is assign a value to the moths variable.

What I really want to do is dynamically generate a tree structure.

The way you are doing it means that the tree structure is fixed at compile time. You would need to implement a multiway tree if you actually want a tree structure that can be changed at runtime.

What I can't seem to do in the above code is assign a value to the moths variable.

Of course you can. Just access a.insects.moths.