Accessing structure members

Hi,

The code below is an example from my C book, which displays "Ace of Spades" using three different ways given the struct.

Just wondering. which way is the best and why?


Thank you.

Code:

---

#include <stdio.h>

struct card
{
    char *face;
    char *suit;
};


int main()
{
    struct card aCard;     
    struct card *cardPtr;   


    aCard.face = "Ace";
    aCard.suit = "Spades";


    cardPtr = &aCard;    /*    assign address of aCard to cardPtr    */
   
    printf( "%s%s%s\n%s%s%s\n%s%s%s\n", aCard.face, " of ", aCard.suit,
    cardPtr->face, " of ", cardPtr->suit,
    ( *cardPtr ).face, " of ", ( *cardPtr ).suit );


    printf("\n");
    return 0;
}

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by mc088

The code below is an example from my C book, which displays "Ace of Spades" using three different ways given the struct.

Just wondering. which way is the best and why?

---

Generally, you should prefer cardPtr->face to ( *cardPtr ).face because the syntactic sugar makes it easier to read, so you should not use the third way here.

However, since you don't need the pointer in the first place, the first way is best because it is simplest.