Can i inherit structure in C?if yes how?
doesn't support but doesn't get in the way either.
Javier
2009-07-11 19:50:16
+1
A:
C is not an object-oriented language and hence has no inheritance.
txwikinger
2009-07-11 18:30:08
what's _reality_? C++ is just a very simple runtime library for dispatching and a lot of compiler syntax to call it when needed. the original C++ compilers produced C code, after all. (and very readable C in fact)
Javier
2009-07-11 19:51:47
+12
A:
C has no explicit concept of inheritance, unlike C++. However, you can reuse a structure in another structure:
typedef struct {
char name[NAMESIZE];
char sex;
} Person;
typedef struct {
Person person;
char job[JOBSIZE];
} Employee;
typedef struct {
Person person;
char booktitle[TITLESIZE];
} LiteraryCharacter;
anon
2009-07-11 18:34:02
As far as I know, you can have a struct/class member inside another in C++ as well.
Tyler Millican
2009-07-11 18:36:42
C says that no padding appears before the first member of a struct. So you can in fact (and are allowed) cast LiteraryCharacter* to Person*, and treat it as a person. +1
Johannes Schaub - litb
2009-07-12 01:06:39
+13
A:
The closest you can get is the fairly common idiom:
typedef struct
{
// base members
} Base;
typedef struct
{
Base base;
// derived members
} Derived;
As Derived starts with a copy of Base, you can do this:
Base *b = (Base *)d;
Where d is an instance of Derived. So they are kind of polymorphic. But having virtual methods is another challenge - to do that, you'd need to have the equivalent of a vtable pointer in Base, containing function pointers to functions that accept Base as their first argument (which you could name this).
By which point, you may as well use C++!
Daniel Earwicker
2009-07-11 18:34:36
Well, that's assuming a C++ compiler is available for your platform!
Anthony Cuozzo
2009-07-13 01:22:03
If a C compiler is available, then so is a C++ compiler - just use one that produces C as its output.
Daniel Earwicker
2009-07-13 06:29:28
+2
A:
You can do the above mentioned
typedef struct
{
// base members
} Base;
typedef struct
{
Base base;
// derived members
} Derived;
But if you want to avoid pointer casting, you can using pointers to a union of Base and Derived.
MighMoS
2009-07-11 19:05:53