INTERVIEW QUESTIONS C STRUCTURES IN C DETAILS

Question: What are bit fields?What is the use of bit fields in a structure declaration?

Answer:

Source: CoolInterview.com

Bit Fields allow the packing of data in a structure.This is especially useful when memory or data storage is at a premium.Typical examples:

Packing several objects into a machine word. e.g. 1 bit flags can be compacted -- Symbol tables in compilers.

Reading external file formats -- non-standard file formats could be read in. E.g. 9 bit integers.

C lets us do this in a structure definition by putting :bit length after the variable. i.e.


struct packed_struct {
unsigned int f1:1;
unsigned int f2:1;
unsigned int f3:1;
unsigned int f4:1;
unsigned int type:4;
unsigned int funny_int:9;
} pack;


Here the packed_struct contains 6 members: Four 1 bit flags f1..f3, a 4 bit type and a 9 bit funny_int. Source: CoolInterview.com

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