C++ Access Structure Member

In C++, once a structure variable has been defined, its member can be accessed through the use of dot (.) operator. For example, the following code fragment assigns 1740 to year element of birth_date structure variable declared earlier:

birth_date.year = 1740 ;

Syntax to Access Structure Member in C++

The structure variable name followed by a period or dot (.) and the element name references to that individual structure element. The syntax to access structure element is shown here:

structure-name.element-name

Remember that the first component or element of an expression involving the dot (.) operator is the name of specific structure variable (birth_date in this case), not the name of structure specifier (date).

The structure members are treated just like other variables. So, to print year of birth_date, you can simply write:

cout << birth_date.year ;

In same fashion, to read day, month and year of joining_date, you can simply write :

cin >> joining_date.day >> joining_date.month >> joining_date.year ;

C++ Access Structure Members Example

Here is an example, demonstrating how to access members of a structure in C++

/* C++ Access Structure Member */

#include<iostream.h>
#include<conio.h>

struct st
{
   int a;    // structure member
   int b;    // structure member
   int sum;  // structure member
}st_var;         // structure variable

void main()
{
   clrscr();
   cout<<"Enter any two number:\n";
   // accessing structure member a and b
   cin>>st_var.a>>st_var.b;
   // accessing structure member sum, a, and b
   st_var.sum = st_var.a + st_var.b;
   // accessing structure member sum
   cout<<"\nSum of the two number is "<<st_var.sum;
   getch();
}

Here is the sample run of this C++ program:

C++ Online Test