Naming Array Elements, or Struct And Array Within a Union

Question

Consider the following struct:

struct Vector4D
{
   union
   {
      double components[4];
      struct { double x, y, z, t; } Endpoint;
   };
};
         


        

Answer 1

1. yes
2. depends on the alignment needs of the architecture and the compilers strategy
3. no, but you could make a object wrapper (but you will end up with .z() instead of just .z)

Most compilers should support squashing a structure using a pragma or an attribute. #pragma pack for example.