arrays in structs

***DEAD*** · 11-24-2006

sorry, i couldnt think of a better title. What im trying to do is to make a CAS system, and i need to define certain things, such as a "term". a term consists of a coefficient and symbols, such as xyz. its a bit more complicated but you get the picture. Ive got something working on python, and now im porting it to c, i dont really have much experience with c which is why i need a bit of help.

Firstly, how do you pass strings to structs. For example

Code:

typedef struct test
{
        char str[30];
} test;

void main()
{
    test test;
    test.str[30] = "test";
    printf(test.str);
}

outputs a whole bunch of random characters.
also, my struct for a term will look something like this.

Code:

typedef struct Term
{
    coefficient coefficients[];
    symbol symbols[];
    bracket brackets[];
} Term;

The problem is is i don't know how many coefficients, symbols, or brackets each term is going to have. This is a problem because I want to put this onto my calculator, which has about 100kb of free ram if im lucky, so having an array of 26 symbols just to make sure i can fit them all will result in huge wastage. is there a method to get around this. Thanks.

**zx-1** · 11-24-2006

Originally Posted by *DEAD*

Firstly, how do you pass strings to structs.

Use strcpy() or malloc(), like you ordinarily would.

The problem is is i don't know how many coefficients, symbols, or brackets each term is going to have.

Use a linked list.

**Salem** · 11-25-2006

> void main()
main always returns an int

> test.str[30] = "test";
You can't assign one array contents to another, so you need something like
strcpy( test.str, "test" );

> printf(test.str);
Never use a variable string as the control string for a printf statement.
If the user ever gets control of that string, then bad things can happen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Format_string_attack

> Term...
Does this work as an alternative?

Code:

typedef struct Term
{
    coefficient coefficient;
    symbol symbol;
    bracket bracket;
} Term;

Term Terms[10];

If so, then this is the first step to either forming a variable length array or a linked list of terms.

How big is each member of the struct, and do you really need to store each one for every single term in the expression?. Symbol and bracket seem to be mutually exclusive to me.

***DEAD*** · 11-25-2006

i have something that works in python, had to get the theory working before i actually started programming, so i want to keep all my ideas the same. The linked list sounds good tho.

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