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C Unions (With Examples)

Unions in C allow storing different data types in the same memory location. Only one member can be accessed at a time. Structures allocate space for all members, while unions allocate space for the largest member only. To define a union, the union keyword is used followed by member variables. Union variables are then created to allocate memory and access members using dot or arrow operators. The size of a union is the size of its largest member, while a struct size is the total size of all members.

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40 views

C Unions (With Examples)

Unions in C allow storing different data types in the same memory location. Only one member can be accessed at a time. Structures allocate space for all members, while unions allocate space for the largest member only. To define a union, the union keyword is used followed by member variables. Union variables are then created to allocate memory and access members using dot or arrow operators. The size of a union is the size of its largest member, while a struct size is the total size of all members.

Uploaded by

Harshit Naik
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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programiz.

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C Unions (With Examples)

3-4 minutes

In this tutorial, you'll learn about unions in C programming. More


specifically, how to create unions, access its members and learn
the differences between unions and structures.

A union is a user-defined type similar to structs in C except for one


key difference.

Structures allocate enough space to store all their members,


whereas unions can only hold one member value at a time.

How to define a union?

We use the union keyword to define unions. Here's an example:

union car
{
char name[50];
int price;
};

The above code defines a derived type union car.

Create union variables

When a union is defined, it creates a user-defined type. However,


no memory is allocated. To allocate memory for a given union type
and work with it, we need to create variables.

Here's how we create union variables.

union car
{
char name[50];
int price;
};

int main()
{
union car car1, car2, *car3;
return 0;
}

Another way of creating union variables is:

union car
{
char name[50];
int price;
} car1, car2, *car3;

In both cases, union variables car1, car2, and a union pointer car3
of union car type are created.

Access members of a union

We use the . operator to access members of a union. And to


access pointer variables, we use the -> operator.

In the above example,

• To access price for car1, car1.price is used.

• To access price using car3, either (*car3).price or


car3->price can be used.

Difference between unions and structures

Let's take an example to demonstrate the difference between


unions and structures:

#include <stdio.h>
union unionJob
{
//defining a union
char name[32];
float salary;
int workerNo;
} uJob;

struct structJob
{
char name[32];
float salary;
int workerNo;
} sJob;

int main()
{
printf("size of union = %d bytes",
sizeof(uJob));
printf("\nsize of structure = %d bytes",
sizeof(sJob));
return 0;
}

Output

size of union = 32
size of structure = 40

Why this difference in the size of union and structure


variables?

Here, the size of sJob is 40 bytes because

• the size of name[32] is 32 bytes

• the size of salary is 4 bytes

• the size of workerNo is 4 bytes

However, the size of uJob is 32 bytes. It's because the size of a


union variable will always be the size of its largest element. In the
above example, the size of its largest element, (name[32]), is 32
bytes.

With a union, all members share the same memory.

Example: Accessing Union Members

#include <stdio.h>
union Job {
float salary;
int workerNo;
} j;

int main() {
j.salary = 12.3;

// when j.workerNo is assigned a value,


// j.salary will no longer hold 12.3
j.workerNo = 100;

printf("Salary = %.1f\n", j.salary);


printf("Number of workers = %d", j.workerNo);
return 0;
}

Output

Salary = 0.0
Number of workers = 100

To learn where unions are used, visit Why do we need C Unions?

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