Using Structures with Functions

There are two ways to pass the information in structures to functions. You can either pass the entire structure or pass the individual members of a structure. By default, structures are passed by value. Structures and their members can also be passed by reference by passing either references or pointers.

To pass a structure by reference, pass the address of the structure object or a reference to the structure object. Arrays of structureslike all other arraysare passed by reference.

In Chapter 7, we stated that an array could be passed by value by using a structure. To pass an array by value, create a structure (or a class) with the array as a member, then pass an object of that structure (or class) type to a function by value. Because structure objects are passed by value, the array member, too, is passed by value.

Performance Tip 22.1

Passing structures (and especially large structures) by reference is more efficient than passing them by value (which requires the entire structure to be copied).