4.3 UNION

A union is a special data type available in C that enables you to store different data types in the same memory location. You can define a union with many members, but only one member can contain a value at any given time. Unions provide an efficient way of using the same memory location for multi-purpose.

 

Defining a Union

To define a union, you must use the union statement in very similar was as you did while defining structure. The union statement defines a new data type, with more than one member for your program.

 

The general format of the union statement is as follows:

               union union_tag

               {

                               member definition;

                               member definition;

                               ...

                               member definition;

               } [one or more union variables]; 

 

§  Each member definition is a normal variable definition, such as int i; or float f; or any other valid variable definition.

§  At the end of the union's definition, before the final semicolon, you can specify one or more union variables but it is optional.

e.g.

               union Data

               {

                               int i;

                               float f;

                               char  str[20];

               } data; 

 

Now, a variable of Data type can store an integer, a floating-point number, or a string of characters. This means that a single variable ie. same memory location can be used to store multiple types of data. You can use any built-in or user defined data types inside a union based on your requirement.

 

The memory occupied by a union will be large enough to hold the largest member of the union. For example, in above example Data type will occupy 20 bytes of memory space because this is the maximum space which can be occupied by character string.

 

Accessing Union Members

To access any member of a union, we use the member access operator (.). The member access operator is coded as a period between the union variable name and the union member that we wish to access. You would use union keyword to define variables of union type.

 

WAP to demonstrate the working of Union