6.5.2.3 Structure and union members

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1021 The first operand of the . operator shall have a qualified or unqualified structure or union type, and the second operand shall name a member of that type.

1022 The first operand of the -> operator shall have type “pointer to qualified or unqualified structure” or “pointer to qualified or unqualified union”, and the second operand shall name a member of the type pointed to.

1023 A postfix expression followed by the . operator and an identifier designates a member of a structure or union object.

1024 The value is that of the named member, and is an lvalue if the first expression is an lvalue.

1025 If the first expression has qualified type, the result has the so-qualified version of the type of the designated member.

1026 A postfix expression followed by the -> operator and an identifier designates a member of a structure or union object.

1027 The value is that of the named member of the object to which the first expression points, and is an lvalue.⁸⁰⁾

1028 If the first expression is a pointer to a qualified type, the result has the so-qualified version of the type of the designated member.

1029 One special guarantee is made in order to simplify the use of unions: if a union contains several structures that share a common initial sequence (see below), and if the union object currently contains one of these structures, it is permitted to inspect the common initial part of any of them anywhere that a declaration of the complete type of the union is visible.

1030 Two structures share a common initial sequence if corresponding members have compatible types (and, for bit-fields, the same widths) for a sequence of one or more initial members.

1031 EXAMPLE 1 If f is a function returning a structure or union, and x is a member of that structure or union, f().x is a valid postfix expression but is not an lvalue.

1032 EXAMPLE 2 In:


        struct s { int i; const int ci; };
        struct s s;
        const struct s cs;
        volatile struct s vs;

the various members have the types:

s.i         int
s.ci        const int
cs.i        const int
cs.ci       const int
vs.i        volatile int
vs.ci       volatile const int

1033 80) If &E is a valid pointer expression (where & is the “address-of” operator, which generates a pointer to its operand), the expression (&E)->MOS is the same as E.MOS.

1034 EXAMPLE 3 The following is a valid fragment:


        union {
                struct {
                        int    alltypes;
                } n;
                struct {
                        int    type;
                        int    intnode;
                } ni;
                struct {
                        int    type;
                        double doublenode;
                } nf;
        } u;
        u.nf.type = 1;
        u.nf.doublenode = 3.14;
        /* ... */
        if (u.n.alltypes == 1)
                if (sin(u.nf.doublenode) == 0.0)
                        /* ... */

The following is not a valid fragment (because the union type is not visible within function f):


        struct t1 { int m; };
        struct t2 { int m; };
        int f(struct t1 *p1, struct t2 *p2)
        {
                if (p1->m < 0)
                        p2->m = -p2->m;
                return p1->m;
        }
        int g()
        {
                union {
                        struct t1 s1;
                        struct t2 s2;
                } u;
                /* ... */
                return f(&u.s1, &u.s2);
        }

1035 Forward references: address and indirection operators (6.5.3.2), structure and union specifiers (6.7.2.1).