C provides the flexibility to create user-defined data types, allowing programmers to structure and organize data composed of multiple different roles or characteristics.
The most common form of a user-defined data type is the
structure. A structure can hold multiple variables of various data types under a single name.
- To define a structure, use the `struct` keyword followed by curly braces containing the member declarations.
- For example, a complex structure might hold integers, characters, and floats.
The objective is to encapsulate related data into one construct. For the core exercise, we created a structure `Quest` under which different data types are grouped:
```c
struct Quest {
float X;
long Y;
unsigned char Z;
} Grail;
```
Here, `Quest` acts as a template which can be used to create variables like `Grail`. By creating structures, you strengthen your capacity to model real-world scenarios where multiple attributes appear collectively, thus enhancing your programming functionality.