
c89 doesn't allow this, but c99 does. Although it's taken a long time to catch on, some compilers (including gcc) are finally starting to implement c99 features.
IMO, if you want to use OOP, you should probably stick to C++ or try out Objective C. Trying to reinvent OOP built on top of C again just doesn't make much sense.


If you insist on doing it anyway, yes, you can pass a pointer to a struct as an imitation of this -- but it's still not a good idea.

It does often make sense to pass (pointers to) structs around when you need to operate on a data structure. I would not, however, advise working very hard at grouping functions together and having them all take a pointer to a struct as their first parameter, just because that's how other languages happen to implement things.

If you happen to have a number of functions that all operate on/with a particular struct, and it really makes sense for them to all receive a pointer to that struct as their first parameter, that's great -- but don't feel obliged to force it just because C++ happens to do things that way.

Edit: As far as how you manage without objects: well, at least when I'm writing C, I tend to operate on individual characters more often. For what it's worth, in C++ I typically end up with a few relatively long lines of code; in C, I tend toward a lot of short lines instead.

There is more separation between the code and data, but to some extent they're still coupled anyway -- a binary tree (for example) still needs code to insert nodes, delete nodes, walk the tree, etc. Likewise, the code for those operations needs to know about the layout of the structure, and the names given to the pointers and such.

Personally, I tend more toward using a common naming convention in my C code, so (for a few examples) the pointers to subtrees in a binary tree are always just named left and right. If I use a linked list (rare) the pointer to the next node is always named next (and if it's doubly-linked, the other is prev). This helps a lot with being able to write code without having to spend a lot of time looking up a structure definition to figure out what name I used for something this time.

Managing without Objects in C - And, why can I declare variables anywhere in a function in C?
I have enum list and method and i get error: " not all code paths return a value"
Some idea whats wrong in my method ? I am sure I always return STANY type :/

Thanks for help :)

     private enum STANY { PATROL, CHAT, EAT, SEARCH, DIE };

     private STANY giveState(int id, List&lt;Ludek&gt; gracze, List&lt;int&gt; plansza)
    {
        // Sprawdz czy gracz stoi na polu z jedzeniem i nie ma 2000 jednostek jedzenia
        bool onTheFood = false;
        onTheFood = CzyPoleZjedzeniem(id, gracze, plansza, onTheFood);

        if (onTheFood &amp;&amp; (gracze[id].IloscJedzenia &lt; startFood / 2))
            return STANY.EAT;

        // Sprawdz czy gracz nie stoi na polu z innym graczem
        bool allKnowledge = true;
        allKnowledge = CzyPoleZInnymGraczem(id, gracze, allKnowledge);

        if (!allKnowledge)
            return STANY.CHAT;

        // Jesli ma ponad i rowna ilosc jedzenia patroluj
        if (gracze[id].IloscJedzenia &gt;= startFood / 2)
            return STANY.PATROL;

        // Jesli ma mniej niz polowe jedzenia szukaj jedzenia
        if (gracze[id].IloscJedzenia &gt; 0 &amp;&amp; gracze[id].IloscJedzenia &lt; startFood / 2)
            return STANY.SEARCH;

        // Jesli nie ma jedzenia umieraj
        if (gracze[id].IloscJedzenia &lt;= 0)
            return STANY.DIE;
    }

