Derived data types

The derived or secondary data type is derived from the fundamental data type. Following data types are kept in this category –

— Array

— Pointer

— String

— Struct

— Union

Below i have given only introduction.You will get detail about derived data types in respective chapters in this course.

 Array

 Array is the collection of similar data type elements.

Example

char number[5]={10,20,30,40,50}; 

here number is an array of  five elements of char data type.

 struct              

Collection of heterogeneous data type elements.

Here emp1 is an structure variable which has all data type elements.

 union             

union is the same as struct except memory uses.union shares memory between its members while structure allocates individual memory for each member.We will discuss in detail in structure and union chapter.

Pointer:         

pointer data type is used to represent the address of a variable.it is differ by a (*) symbol from fundamental data type

unsigned int *ptr_var;

So here ptr_var is a pointer variable of unsigned int type which can hold the address of same data type variable.

Please see the respective chapters for more detail.