Data structures in C++

A data structure is a group of data elements grouped together under one name. These data elements, known as members, can have different types and different lengths. Data structures are declared in C++ using the following syntax:

struct structure_name {
member_type1 member_name1;
member_type2 member_name2;
member_type3 member_name3;
.
.
} object_names;

where structure_name is a name for the structure type, object_name can be a set of valid identifiers for objects that have the type of this structure. Within braces { } there is a list with the data members, each one is specified with a type and a valid identifier as its name.

The first thing we have to know is that a data structure creates a new type: Once a data structure is declared, a new type with the identifier specified as structure_name is created and can be used in the rest of the program as if it was any other type. For example:

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struct product { int weight; float price; } ; product apple; product banana, melon;

We have first declared a structure type called product with two members: weight and price, each of a different fundamental type. We have then used this name of the structure type (product) to declare three objects of that type: apple, banana and melon as we would have done with any fundamental data type.


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