Initializing std::array of std::structs using uniform initialization in C++

24 Oct 2023

Let’s say we have a struct Person with two members: name and age.

#include <array>
#include <string>

struct Person {
    std::string name;
    int age;
};

int main() {
    std::array<Person, 3> people = {
        {"Alice", 25},
        {"Bob", 30},
        {"Charlie", 35}
    };
    
    // Accessing the elements in the array
    for (const auto& person : people) {
        std::cout << "Name: " << person.name << ", Age: " << person.age << std::endl;
    }

    return 0;
}

In this example, we are creating a std::array called people of size 3, where each element is of type Person. We initialize the array using uniform initialization syntax by providing a list of elements enclosed in curly braces {}. Each element is itself initialized using a braced-init-list {} containing the values for name and age.

The code then demonstrates how to access the elements in the array using a range-based for loop. It prints the name and age of each person.

Executing the above code will output:

Name: Alice, Age: 25
Name: Bob, Age: 30
Name: Charlie, Age: 35

Uniform initialization simplifies the initialization process and provides a more readable and consistent way to initialize arrays of structs in C++. It is available in C++11 and later versions.

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