Chapter 19
Structs

This section is about making own own new variable types. It’s not as exciting as it sounds, since all we can do is group together ints, floats and strings. But it’s a nice trick, and it’s the basis for classes and Object Oriented Programming.

For example, it takes three floats to make a color (red, green, blue.) A struct lets Color be an official type, which the computer knows is made of three floats.

Even better, the trick works for stuff we just make-up. Suppose we’re writing a program about cows – each has a name, age and weight. It would be nice to build that into the program. Then we could declare Cow c1; and let the computer automatically make those variables for the parts.

The common name (and the one C# uses) for these is struct. There are some built-ins, and we can make our own. I think the best way to learn them is to make the Cow example, then a few more, then give the formal rules.

19.1 Cow struct example

Here’s the top part of a program making a sample struct named Cow:

class TestA : MonoBehaviour {  
 
  struct Cow {  
    public string name;  
    public int age;  
    public float pounds;  
  }

First, let’s take a look at the overall form. The last five lines, struct Cow { }, count as one thing. The name Cow is in front. Then a big set of curly-braces mark what belongs to Cow. The inside looks like three variable declarations. They aren’t, but it’s the same rules.

Now onto what it does. This makes a new type named Cow, and says how to build it. It doesn’t declare any variables, or really do anything. It’s more like a recipe or a blueprint. It lets the computer know that if someone declares a Cow variable, it’s legal, and says how to make one.

The names inside are called fields. It’s the same use of the word as those web-based forms that say “required field.” They describe the parts of a Cow.

Now we can declare some Cows:

  int n; // old, boring declare just for reference  
 
  Cow c1;  
  Cow c2;

Cow c1; declares c1 as a Cow. Just like you’re probably thinking, the computer says “A Cow? How do you declare a Cow?” But then it looks near the top and sees struct Cow. That tells the computer it can declare a Cow, and the middle part tells it what the parts are – a string and int and a float.

Cow c2; declares another Cow. Nothing new there – I just want two Cows for later in the example.

Here’s a picture of all 3 variables in the program:

  n ___  
 
  c1               c2  
  -------------    ------------  
  | name:      |  | name:      |  
  | age:       |  | age:       |  
  | pounds:    |  | pounds:    |  
  -------------    ------------

Again, n is nothing special – it’s just there for comparison. The interesting thing is that c1 is one variable, with those three parts inside of it. Then c2 is another variable, with the same three parts. Inside of c1, name is a string. There’s another string. name, inside of c2.

Here’s a program using c1 and c2 (I’m including everything here, so only Start is new):

class TestA : MonoBehaviour {  
 
  struct Cow {  
    public string name;  
    public int age;  
    public float pounds;  
  }  
 
  int n;  
 
  Cow c1;  
  Cow c2;  
 
  void Start() {  
    c1.name = "Bessy";  
    c2.name = "Miss Cowy-cow";  
 
    c1.age=6;  
    c2.pounds=1200;  
 
    print( c1.name + " is " + c1.age + " years old" );  // Bessy is 6 years old  
  }  
}

This is showing us the last thing we need – how to use the parts of a struct. c1.name="Bessy"; shows the rule: put the variable name, then a dot, then the field. c1.name is the name slot in the first cow.

After you type "c1.” (c1, then a dot,) autocomplete will even show you the fields: name, age and pounds. It knows about them from the struct Cow we made at the top.

The first two lines are showing us that each Cow has it’s own name. c1.name and c2.name are different. In other words, the picture is correct. The next two lines are using the age and pounds fields, just to show we can. c2.pounds=1200; goes to c2, then inside its pounds field, and sets that to 1200.

The print shows that the “varName-dot-field” rule is like a variable – you can assign to c1.name and also read from it.

After Start runs, here’s the new picture:

  n ___  
 
  c1                      c2  
  --------------    ------------  
  | name: Bessy |  | name: Miss Cowy-cow  
  | age: 6      |  | age:  
  | pounds:     |  | pounds: 1200  
  --------------    ------------

The picture is really pretty boring. Start assigned four things, and the picture shows all four of them. The pounds in the lower-right is c2.pounds, the last assignment put 1200 in it, and there it is.

c1.pounds and c2.age are empty, since the code didn’t put anything in them. If I tried to print them, I’d get the usual “has not been initialized” error.

L-values

In the assignment chapter, I made a big deal about how the thing on the left had to be a variable, all by itself. You could never have a formula – x+1 = 7; is an error. But here, the left side isn’t quite a variable. c1.age says to find variable c1, and then look inside for the age part. It’s like a little formula, so c1.age=6; looks like it breaks the rule.

The real rule for assignment statements is that the left side needs to count as a variable. It needs to be a box that can be changed. The technical name is L-value. It stands for “value that can be on the left-hand of an assignment statement.” I know L-value sounds really fake, but put “lvalue” in a Search Engine – that’s really what we call it.

Before this, only actual variables were L-values. Using a struct field is a new thing that also counts as a variable. In other words, in every way, c1.age works like an int variable. You can use c1.age++; or c1.age *=2; or c1.name = "a" + c1.name + "b";.

It takes a while to get used to seeing mini-formulas that count as variables, but they eventually feel natural. Later, we’ll see other things like this – they aren’t simple variables, but they count that way.

19.1.1 More examples

This is a traditional very basic struct example, with just two fields of the same type. It makes a FullName struct containing a first and last name. This mini-program creates it, declares some FullName variables and uses them a little:

 
// creates a new struct: "FullName":  
struct FullName {  
  public string first, last;  
}

As with Cow, this doesn’t create any variables. It defines FullName as a new struct type.

The fields are both the same type – two strings. You can re-use any types you need for the fields. This also uses the comma-declare shortcut. The same as always it’s just a shortcut and isn’t any different than declaring them on two lines. A trick in choosing field names is to remember that everyone knows they’re part of a FullName. first and last are fine since we know it’s fullname-first and fullname-last.

The start of the code using them:

void Start() {  
  FullName mom1, mom2; // both are fullnames  
 
  mom1.first = "Olga";  
  mom1.last = "Pog";  
 
  string m = mom1.first + " " + mom1.last;  
  print( "Mother1’s name: "+ m );  // Olga Pog

Structs can be declared using the comma shortcut. They can also be local or global, like mom1 and mom2 are local to Start here. You can use struct variables in pretty much all the ways and places you’d use ints or strings.

The two lines assigning to mom1 are pretty typical. In our minds we’re assigning “Olga Pog” as her name, and it takes two steps. It common to assign to every field, all together like this.

In the next line I wanted to show the fields act like strings in all ways: mom.first + " " + mom.last is just three strings added together.

I’ll reuse some other old tricks for mom2:

  mom2.first= "blue" + "elf" + 451;  
  mom2.last = mom1.last;  
  mom2.last += "ie";  
 
  print( "Mother 2 : "+ mom2.first + " " + mom2.last ); // blueelf451 Pogie  
}

The second line, mom2.last = mom1.last; is just copying a string to a string, even if it took those funny dots to get to them. In the next line, the += shortcut works as normal, tacking ie to the end.

Here’s a short code snippet using a Cow and a FullName together. Nothing really special, just to show it can be done:

Cow a1;  
a1.name = "Lou-Lou";  
a1.age=7;  
 
FullName p1;  
// person has same name as the cow:  
p1.first = a1.name; // no problem -- just string = string  
p1.last = "Smith";  
print( p1.first + " " + p1.last ); // Lou-Lou Smith  
 
// a1.last = "Cowstein"; // ERROR no last in a Cow  
// p1.age = 85; // ERROR no age in a FullName

p1.first = a1.name; is one of those things that can confuse you later. First off, it’s simple: p1.first is a string, and so is a1.name;, so it’s no different than w1=w2;.

The possibly confusing part, if you start thinking about it, is how we’re copying from the inside a Cow into the inside of a FullName. It sort of looks like the types are different. The trick is, every step of the way doesn’t have to match – only the end. You can copy a string field from a Cow into a string field of a FullName.

Here’s the picture, after it runs:

  a1                      p1  
  ----------------    ------------  
  | name: Lou-Lou |  | first: Lou-Lou  
  | age: 7        |  | last: Smith  
  | pounds:       |  ------------  
  --------------

The two errors at the end are showing how each struct type has it’s own personal fields – the ones listed in its struct { }, and nothing else. Cows don’t have last names, because we didn’t write public string last; inside Cow.

This next example is about making a semi-useful struct to improve my old move-and-wrap code, and using some Unity-magic to see it.

To make something increase and wrap-around, I need 4 variables: the value, the speed, the maximum and the minimum (the last two are for the wrap-around part.) In my mind, those four variables make one variable-mover. So I’ll make a struct for it:

struct Mover {  
  public float val; // the main thing  
  public float spd; // amount to change val, each update  
  public float min, max; // the limits for val  
}

I want to use them in a program that changes the red and green parts of my color. Each will use it’s own Mover variable:

Mover red, green;

That creates the 4 floats I need for red, and the 4 for green. Here’s a picture:

  red          green  
 ---------    ---------  
| val     |  | val     |  
| spd     |  | spd     |  
| min     |  | min     |  
| max     |  | max     |  
 ---------    ---------

We need to add some special Unity tricks to see them in the Inspector. Adding public in front of a global normally makes Unity show it, but structs need two extra things. You have to also write public before the struct definition, and [System.Serializable] on the line before. That second thing is a real C# thing, but it’s pretty far-out and Unity is abusing it anyway, so I’ll just say it’s magic.

The final result looks like this:

[System.Serializable]  
public struct Mover {  
  public float val;  
  public float spd;  
  public float min, max;  
}  
 
public Mover red, green; // now they’re visible in the inspector

The really cool part is, if you put just that in a script (before Start), on your Cube, the Inspector will show red and green. If you pop-open the little triangles, you can see that each one has val, spd, min and max. It knows about struct Mover and makes a picture for us!

Here’s some code using them. It’s the same color change code from way back, except using the struct:

void Update() {  
  red.val += red.spd;  
  if(red.val > red.max) red.val=red.min;  
 
  green.val += green.spd;  
  if(green.val > green.max) green.val=green.min;  
 
  GetComponent<Renderer>().material.color = new Color( red.val, green.val, 0);  
}

I like how a simple struct helps organize this. The program really just has 8 variables, and before we would have hand-declared all 8, like float redMax;. Using the struct automatically makes red and green have the same 4 subparts; and typing red-dot and using the pop-up is an easy way to write the program.

The variables start as all 0, so running this won’t do anything good. Start could give them values, like red.spd=0.02f;. But it’s easier entering values through the Inspector. Probably 0 and 1 for min and max. Or 0.5 to 1, and so on. A different speed for red and green will make a longer pattern. With a little work, they can cycle through a bunch of different shades before repeating.

19.2 Common errors

Seeing some common struct errors is a good excuse to talk about the rules, and explain more about how they work:

19.3 rules

We’ve seen most of the rules in examples, but it’s still nice to have them all in one place. For most, just skim them to be sure you’ve gotten them right. But there should be a few new things in here:

19.3.1 namespace vs. struct dots

We already know C# uses the dot for namespaces. In that chapter I warned you we were going to double-use the dot for something else. This is the second use. An example of both uses:

float n = Mathf.PI; // namespace  
int a = c1.age; // inside struct

They both look inside the thing before the dot, but besides that, they’re very different. Mathf isn’t a variable, and there’s one Mathf.PI. It’s really a built-in global.

On the other hand, there’s one age for each Cow we declare; and Cow.age is an error.

There really should have been a different symbol for each, and it is confusing at first, but you get used to it. When you see Jark.groat you just have to check whether Jark is a namespace, in which case groat is a global there; or whether Jark is a declared variable, in which case groat is a field.

Examples:

Cow c1; c1.age=Random.Range(0,8);  
     field^          ^namespace  
int n = Mathf.Max(c1.age, c2.age);  
    namespace^      ^field  ^field

19.4 Builtin structs: Color, Vector3

We know Unity3D’s position and size are a combined x,y&z. Now that we’ve seen structs, it should be obvious that’s how Unity is doing that. Vector3 is just three floats, named x, y and z. It’s already in the computer, so you can’t redefine it, but here’s what it looks like:

struct Vector3 {  
  public float x, y, z;  
}

The name is from math: vector is a math term for list of numbers, and the 3 at the end is a reminder it has 3 parts.

The old position line, transform.position = new Vector3(x,0,0);, was using a shortcut. new Vector3(x,0,0) is a way to create an instant struct. Creating a normal Vector3 variable can be nicer. Here’s the old and the new way:

void Start() {  
  transform.position = new Vector3(0,0,0); // old way  
 
  // new way:  
  Vector3 upperLeft;  
  upperLeft.x=-6.5f; // just pick some numbers for x,y,z  
  upperLeft.z=4.0f;  
  upperLeft.y=0;  
 
  transform.position = upperLeft;  
}

The last line is assigning a struct to a struct – it copies the x,y,z from upperLeft into position (the old line also did that, but I didn’t make a big deal about it.)

We’ll see how this improves movement code, later.

For fun, write public Vector3 p; as a global variable in any script and look in the Inspector. You should see the x, y and z fields going across. It lists them that way instead of with the triangle-toggle, since it’s built-in – they tried to make it look nicer.

Scale, a Cube’s size, is also a Vector3. That might seem odd, since Vector3 is for position, but it makes perfect sense. After all, we use floats for anything that wants a decimal – position, how red to be, how much a cow weighs. Anytime we want an x,y,z together, we should use a Vector3.

This make us be wide and skinny (I’m leaving out the old way):

  void Start() {  
    Vector3 sz;  
    sz.x=3; // wide  
    sz.y=sz.z=0.4f; // standard double-assign trick  
    transform.localScale = sz;  
  }

For extra fun, this uses the same Vector3 to set position, then size:

  void Start() {  
    Vector3 v; v.x=6; v.y=-2; v.z=0; // just some position  
    transform.position = v;  
 
    v.x=0.4f; v.y=2; v.z=1; // redo v to use as scale  
    transform.localScale = v;  
  }

19.4.1 Color

We’ve been setting colors using r, g and b – another struct. It looks like this (Unity already has it defined):

struct Color {  
  public float r, g, b, a;  
}

The very short field names are fine, since they’re inside of a color – r clearly stands for red. The last one, a, is “alpha” for transparency. It won’t do anything (setting up the ability to be transparent takes a few steps).

It turns out Unity has a Vector4, which is also four floats. Vector4 and Color are identical structs. But’s that legal, and fine, like Cow and Sheep. We prefer using a struct named Color for colors, with floats named r, g and b.

If you declare public Color c1; as a global, the Inspector will make a fancy color-picker. That’s just great, and why we use fancy editors. But it’s merely a very nice way to set the 4 floats in a color stuct.

The code below will turn us orange, using a Color variable. Even though alpha is ignored, we have to set it to something – the rule where you can’t assign a struct unless every field is set:

void Start() {  
  Color cc;  
  cc.r=0.9f;  
  cc.g=0.6f;  
  cc.b=0.1f;  
  cc.a=1; // ignored, but must be set to something  
 
  // same old line, but assigning our Color variable:  
  GetComponent<Renderer>().material.color = cc;  
}

19.5 Constructors, struct literals

We’ve seen how you can create an instant red using Color(1,0,0); or an instant xyz position with Vector3(-7,0,0). The basic rule for an instant struct is to put the name with parens around the values, for example (this is almost legal): Cow("Amy",12,1600).

The cow in front should make sense. (0,1,1) could be a color, or a Vector3, or a hundred other structs we wrote which happen to have three numbers. We have to say which one it is.

The technical term for the command is Constructor – it constructs a color from those values. Cute, right? Technically new Vector3(1,2,0) constructs a struct literal. Remember literal is the term for a constant value of a type.

C# requires the word new in front. We’ve already seen this in
transform.position = new Vector3(x,0,0);. Eventually our Cow will be new Cow("Amy",12,1600);

We can use constructors to assign to struct variables. Here we set up a Vector3 and a Color using the shortcut:

Vector3 pos = new Vector3(5,0,0); // assigns all 3 at once  
Color winCol = new Color(0.5f, 0.2f, 0);  
 
winCol = new Color(0,0,0); // can change later with same shortcut  
winCol.g=1; // can assign fields like normal

Another rule, and this is common in many languages: empty parens gets you all 0’s or empty strings. For example new Vector3() is the same as new Vector3(0,0,0), and new Cow() is a shortcut for initializing the name to "" and age and weight to 0’s.

new Color(); gets you four 0’s, which is a useless see-through black. But at least it follows the constructor rules.

Another rule, also common, is you have to write the useful constructors yourself. This means none of the structs we write will have any until we learn to write them. We can use Cow c = new Cow(); to blank it out, but we’ll have to make real cows the long way until we write a Cow constructor.

But this rule also means you can write all kinds. If you type “new Vector3(” the drop-down shows three versions. Besides all three or none, you can enter just x and y, leaving z at 0:

transform.position = new Vector3(x,y); // sets z to 0

For color, they added a different shortcut. If you leave off the final transparency, it sets it to you 1 (1 means solid, not transparent at all). I’ve been using it the entire time:

Color c = new Color(1,0,0,1); // solid red (final 1=not see-through)  
c=new Color(1,0,0); // short-cut (sets alpha to 1)

There’s no shorter shortcut, since why would anyone want to enter just red and blue?

Then, remember, constructors are only shortcuts – we can always declare a variable and hand-set each field.

19.6 Nested structs

The fields in a struct can be any type, even another struct. We usually call that a nested struct, like those Russian dolls nested inside of each other. It’s a useful thing to be able to do. There aren’t any special rules for this – structs inside structs work the normal way – but they can look funny. This is just a lot of examples.

I want to change the Cow struct so each Cow also has two Color’s. So that’s a struct in a struct. To simplify, I’m getting rid of age and weight:

struct Cow {  
  public string name;  
  public Color mainCol;  
  public Color spotCol;  
}

Here’s some code using it. I set each color a different way. For mainCol I copy an entire Color variable into it. For spotCol I copy in r,g,b,a one at a time:

Cow c1;  
c1.name = "Bessy"; // same as before  
 
Color blk; blk.r=0; blk.g=0; blk.b=0; blk.a=1;  
c1.mainCol = blk; // copy a Color to a Color  
 
c1.spotCol.r=0.4f;  
c1.spotCol.g=0.3f;  
c1.spotCol.b=0.1f;  
c1.spotCol.a=1;

The last part with c1.spotCol.r=0.4f; is the most interesting. Using more than one dot isn’t a new rule – it’s just the way the usual struct rule works out. The trick is to read left-to-right. c1 is a Cow. It has mainCol or spotCol. c1.spotCol is a Color, it has r, g, or b.

As usual, once you get to a box, it counts as a variable of that type. c1.mainCol.g is a regular float. You can do float things with it, like c1.mainCol.g+=0.2f;.

c1.r is an error (plus it makes no sense.) We have to use c1.mainCol or c1.spotCol, then we can add the dot-r. It’s really the old can’t-jump-over-a-field error.

Here’s another example, putting one of my own structs inside another. A Plumber has a FullName and an hourly rate:

struct FullName { public string first, last; } // no change  
 
struct Plumber {  
  public FullName name;  
  public float hourlyRate;  
}  
 
FullName customer; // for comparison  
Plumber p1;

The first thing is that this doesn’t hurt or change FullName. We can still use it like normal, to declare FullName customer;. In other words, now that FullName is a type, anyone can use it, including Plumber.

Here’s a picture of p1:

p1  
------------------  
|       ----------  
| name | first:  
|      | last:  
|       ----------  
| hourlyRate:  
-------------------

p1 has two parts. That’s what the definition of Plumber says. The first part, name, also has two parts: p1.name.first and p1.name.last.

Here’s some code using customer and p1:

// this is just a regular FullName, to show it works the same:  
customer.first = "Lom";  
customer.last = "Lomson";  
 
p1.hourlyRate = 24.50f; // nothing special here  
 
p1.name.first = "Larch";  
p1.name.last = "Larchenson";  
 
// redo the name:  
p1.name = customer; // plumber’s name is now Lom Lomson

Same as before, p1.first would be an error. You can’t skip past name.

There’s no limit to putting structs in structs in structs. You just use as many dots as you need.

19.7 Structs as function inputs

Since a struct is a type, it can be used as a parameter. Here’s an example of a function which turns a FullName into a nice string:

string commaName(FullName f) {  
  string w=f.last + ", " + f.first; // last, first  
  return w;  
}

commaName(customer); would give us "Larchenson, Larch". Since structs can’t print themselves, functions turning them into nice-looking strings are common.

This one turns a plumber into a string. It’s interesting since a plumber contains a FullName, so we can re-use commaName for the plumber’s name:

string PlumberDesc(Plumber p) {  
  string nm= commaName( p.name ); // re-using. p.name is a FullName  
  return nm+"; Hourly rate: $" + p.hourlyRate;  
  // ex: Clark, Stan; Hourly rate: $37  
}

If plumber names were printed in a different way we’d write it out. Say we only wanted ”Clark, $37/hr:

string PlumberShortDesc(Plumber p) {  
  return p.name.last + ", $" + p.hourlyRate + "/hr";  
}

Built-in structs can be inputs. This is a somewhat silly function that tells us how bright a color is (it averages red, green and blue):

float getBrightness(Color c) {  
  float sum=c.r+c.g+c.b;  
  return sum/3.0f; // range is 0-1  
}

Suppose we had some funny loop that cycled c1 through a lot of colors. if(brightness(c1)<0.1f) could be used to test when it’s too dark.

Passing structs to functions is another of the main reasons we make them. It’s a lot clearer and shorter for a function heading to say it takes a Cow than to say it takes a string, int and float.

19.8 Structs as return values

Functions can also return structs. There’s no special rule for it – these are just examples:

This one returns a random Color. I like it because it follows my standard pattern: declare variable for the answer, fill it, return it:

Color randCol() {  
  Color ans;  
  ans.r = Random.Range(0.0f, 1.0f);  
  ans.g = Random.Range(0.0f, 1.0f);  
  ans.b = Random.Range(0.0f, 1.0f);  
  ans.a=1;  
  return ans;  
}

We can use it with Color c1 = randCol();. Just so you know, this method tends to get a lot of ugly browns and greys.

This one does a table look-up (pretend we have Colors 0, 1 and 2, and use an int to say which one to use):

Color numToCol(int colNum) {  
  Color ans;  
  if(colNum==0) ans=new Color(1,0,0); // red  
  else if(colNum==1) ans=new Color(0,1,0); // green  
  else if(colNum==2) ans=new Color(0.5f, 0.5f, 1); // light blue  
  else ans=new Color(1, 0, 1); // error purple  
  return ans;  
}

It’s just a standard table-making cascading if, with a none-of-the-above in the final else (purple.) I used the constructor short-cuts to make the colors, but didn’t have to (I could have used curly-braces and set rgb by hand.)

A sample use is GetComponent<Renderer>().material.color=numToCol(1);.

A lot of programs use 0-255 for color values. For example, (255,128,0) is orange. This function makes a usable Color from 0-255 values. For example, Color c = colFrom255(255,128,0); will give us (1,0.5,0), which is the orange value in Unity:

// lets us make a Color using 0-255 numbers:  
Color colFrom255(int r, int g, int b) {  
  Color ans; ans.a=1;  
  ans.r = r/255.0f;  
  ans.g = g/255.0f;  
  ans.b = b/255.0f;  
  return ans;  
}

We could use GetComponent<Renderer>().material.color = colFrom255(210,0,255); to turn ourself blueish-purple.

The next, slightly fakey, function returns a Vector3. It takes a y coordinate and returns a point on the left edge of the screen (it just fills in -7 for x and 0 for z):

Vector3 leftPos(float y) {  
  Vector3 ans;  
  ans.z=0;  ans.y=y;  
  ans.x = -7; // left edge  
  return ans;  
}

We might use it like transform.position = leftPos(-3);, to put us on the left near the bottom.

It also shows the “field names only matter in the struct” rule. Input y is a regular float. ans.y = y; is fine. It copies the input y into the y field.

Finally, we can do both – use a struct for input and output. This one brightens (or darkens) the input Color. It uses the “modify the input” trick, to save declaring an extra variable:

Color brighterCol(Color c, float amt) {  
  c.r+=amt; if(c.r>1) c.r=1;  
  c.g+=amt; if(c.g>1) c.g=1;  
  c.b+=amt; if(c.b>1) c.b=1;  
  return c;  
}

It’s also an example of a function that seems like it might change you, but doesn’t:

brighterCol(c1, 0.1f); // does nothing  
Color c2 = brighterCol(c1, 0.1f); // c1 unchanged, c2 is a brighter c1  
c1=brighterCol(c1, 0.1f); // makes c1 10% brighter

19.9 Uninitialized structs

Structs don’t automatically initialize any of their fields. As usual, cow c2; n=c2.age; is an uninitialized variable error. That seems about right.

But since they have parts, structs have an extra bonus rule: when you use a whole struct, every part needs to have a value. In other words, c2=c1 or doCowStuff(c1) are errors unless every part is filled in.

The idea is, what if c1 only has the name filled in? c2=c1; technically makes c2 into an exact copy, with only its named filled in. But it seems weird that a variable can have empty parts after an =. So they made it illegal.

For example, this function only reads the age. But you need to fill in the whole cow to run it:

float normalCowWt(Cow c) {  
  return 20.0f + 40.5f*c.age;  
}  
 
Cow c1; c1.age=8;  
int n = normalCowWt(c1); // error. Passing uninitialized c1

This rule is a cool example of how computer languages always have rough spots and have to choose. C# is trying to be safer, so make some things errors that aren’t actually a problem.

It also leads to a fun style rule. C# users are in the habit of always using the empty constructor: Cow c = new Cow();. It’s a simple way to make sure everything is filled in. You don’t need to. If you were going to fill every part anyway it’s a complete waste. But it doesn’t hurt and feels like a “better safe than sorry” thing.