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