where is union required?
please explain with an example where having union is a better choice than any data structure.
deceptikon 1,790
where is union required?
A union is never required, but it can simplify certain tasks such as type punning. An example is from the C standard library implementation in my signature. I use a union for punning between an IEEE double, its 64-bit representation, and a breakdown of the key components (specified by bitfields):
typedef union _real8 {
unsigned long long ivalue;
double fvalue;
struct {
unsigned long long mantissa : 52;
unsigned long long exponent : 11;
unsigned long long sign : 1;
} parts;
} _real8_t;
This saves me from having to use the bitwise operators to break down the value manually such as in this helper function:
/*
@description:
Implementation helper for the fpclassify macro for double/long double.
*/
int _fpclassifyd(double value)
{
_real8_t fpv;
fpv.fvalue = value;
if (fpv.parts.exponent == 0)
return fpv.parts.mantissa == 0 ? FP_ZERO : FP_SUBNORMAL;
else if (fpv.parts.exponent == 0x7FF)
return fpv.parts.mantissa == 0 ? FP_INFINITE : FP_NAN;
return FP_NORMAL;
}
The alternative would be much uglier and harder to infer the intended meaning of the code.
please explain with an example where having union is a better choice than any data structure.
This question is confusing, and I suspect you're using "data structure" to mean C's struct. Keep in mind that "data structure" is used elsewhere in computer science to mean a more general way of storing and accessing data (eg. linked lists, trees, stacks, queues).
