Ex16. Ex Credit Convert the program to NOT use pointers

C
#1

So I am trying to go through the EC and just use variables to create stack structures. The problem is I want to have two variable length arrays (to hold the strings) in the structure. I searched around docs and google and I know I can only have one variable length and it must be last in the structure, so how do I get around that without a pointer (cast is as something else?) I guess I am kinda stumped. Obviously if I used pointers it would not be a problem. I am sure I am just missing some high level concept.

// Stack Structure

struct House {

int address;
char house_name[]; 
char house_street[];

};

/////// Pointer Structure
struct Furniture
{
char *name;
char *color;
float price;
};

//////////////////

// Rest of code would initialize, create, call, etc…

#2

Well I answered my own question here… I was overthinking it a bit, why does the char arrays need to variable … they really don’t right, they just need to be big enough to handle the input when I create it later, I updated my code this way

// Stack Structure

struct House {

int address;
char house_name[50];
char house_street[50];
};

#3

Bingo. There really isn’t a reason to make this kind of data infinite, so set it at a fixed size and be done with it. I would create a #define or constant that had the 50 in it so that you don’t accidentally use the wrong number, or if you change it you don’t have to hunt down everywhere 50 is mentioned.

#define HOUSE_LENGTH 50

struct House {
int address;
char house_name[HOUSE_LENGTH];
char house_street[HOUSE_LENGTH];
};