creating an array of structs in c++

Question

I\'m trying to create an array of structs. Is the code below valid? I keep getting an expected primary-expression before \'{\' token error.

int main         


        

Answer 1

You can't use an initialization-list for a struct after it's been initialized. You've already default-initialized the two Customer structs when you declared the array customerRecords. Therefore you're going to have either use member-access syntax to set the value of the non-static data members, initialize the structs using a list of initialization lists when you declare the array itself, or you can create a constructor for your struct and use the default operator= member function to initialize the array members.

So either of the following could work:

Customer customerRecords[2];
customerRecords[0].uid = 25;
customerRecords[0].name = "Bob Jones";
customerRecords[1].uid = 25;
customerRecords[1].namem = "Jim Smith";

Or if you defined a constructor for your struct like:

Customer::Customer(int id, string input_name): uid(id), name(input_name) {}

You could then do:

Customer customerRecords[2];
customerRecords[0] = Customer(25, "Bob Jones");
customerRecords[1] = Customer(26, "Jim Smith");

Or you could do the sequence of initialization lists that Tuomas used in his answer. The reason his initialization-list syntax works is because you're actually initializing the Customer structs at the time of the declaration of the array, rather than allowing the structs to be default-initialized which takes place whenever you declare an aggregate data-structure like an array.