👀 Views: 98 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-05

c memset struct initialization C

I'm experiencing unexpected behavior when I try to initialize a struct using `memset`. I have a struct that contains a few integers and a floating-point number, but it seems that some of the values are not being initialized as I expected. Here's a simplified version of my struct: ```c typedef struct { int id; char name[20]; float score; } Student; ``` I initialize an array of `Student` like this: ```c Student students[10]; memset(students, 0, sizeof(students)); ``` After this operation, I expected all `id`, `name`, and `score` fields to be set to zero. However, when I print the `name` field for each student: ```c for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { printf("Student %d: ID = %d, Name = '%s', Score = %.2f\n", students[i].id, students[i].name, students[i].score); } ``` I noticed that the `name` field is not initialized properly. Sometimes it prints garbage values or even causes a segmentation fault when I attempt to access it. The issue seems related to the padding that the compiler adds to align the struct members. I tried using `strncpy` to initialize the `name` field individually, but I would really prefer a more straightforward means of zeroing out the entire struct. I’m compiling with GCC version 11.2.0 with default optimization settings. Is there a better way to ensure all fields, including those with padding, are correctly zeroed out? Should I be using a different method for initializing my structs in a way that guarantees all data members, including any padding, are safely handled? What are the best practices here?