Structure array initialisation

Question

The error encountered is: expected expression before '{' token. Why it is so?

#include <stdio.h>
int main ()
{
    struct test
    {
        char a[100];
        int g;
    } b[2];
    b[0] = {"Maharshi", 5};
    b[1] = {"Hello", 6};
    printf("%u %u", &b[0], &b[1]);
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

You may not assign initializer lists to already defined objects.

b[0] = {"Maharshi", 5};
b[1] = {"Hello", 6};

But you could do what you want by means of compound literals:

b[0] = ( struct test ){ "Maharshi", 5 };
b[1] = ( struct test ){ "Hello", 6 };

Or use the initializer lists when the array is being defined.

Answer 2

You cannot use list initialization when the struct is already declared ! You could have used it like this :

int main () {
    struct test{
            char a[100];
            int g;
    }b[2] =
    {{"Maharshi", 5},
     {"Hello", 6}};

    printf("%u %u", b[0].g, b[1].g);

    return 0;
}

(Note that the inside braces are optionnal.)