macOS Not sure how to declare a particular struct.

[MorphingDragon]

I'm making some C code to work with SVG Vector Sprites.

I have done all the planning on paper on how to read the SVG File, represent the paths, path styles, OpenGL\Quartz2D\GDI drawing etc and how to store them into an array.

I want to have a single struct to hold the points for the paths, styles and matrix transformation.

Basically I have 3 arrays. A void-ptr array for the paths and path symbols. A void-ptr array to hold the styles for the paths. An int array to hold the matrix transformation for the paths.

What I don't know is, when declaring the struct, do I have a single pointer for the array, or do I have a pointer to a pointer. (The array's size wont be known when the struct is declared, made)

 

[holmesf]

I'm making some C code to work with SVG Vector Sprites.

I have done all the planning on paper on how to read the SVG File, represent the paths, path styles, OpenGL\Quartz2D\GDI drawing etc and how to store them into an array.

I want to have a single struct to hold the points for the paths, styles and matrix transformation.

Basically I have 3 arrays. A void-ptr array for the paths and path symbols. A void-ptr array to hold the styles for the paths. An int array to hold the matrix transformation for the paths.

What I don't know is, when declaring the struct, do I have a single pointer for the array, or do I have a pointer to a pointer. (The array's size wont be known when the struct is declared, made)

I'm not sure I fully understand the situation, but if the question is just "how do I declare a member variable to a struct which is a variable length array?" then the answer is as a single pointer (not a pointer to a pointer). When you do know the length of the array, simply allocate a portion of memory of that length, and point the pointer to it (mystruct.array = (void *)malloc( num_bytes )

 

[Sydde]

If you have several fixed-size elements and one variable size array, you could declare that array as the last element in the struct, eg,

typedef struct 
{
int somePts[32];
char *lblStrings[32];
void *sprites[0];
} dStruct;

in which case, the sprites array would fall completely outside the bounds of the struct: you would have to formulate an allocation something like

malloc( sizeof( dStruct ) + ( sizeof( void* ) * spriteCount ) );

I believe you will find it handier to simply create an array of structs. Create a struct that can hold as much atomic data as practical (never too little) and array them. You might waste some space, but it might be easier to work with.