Lots and lots of pointers to structs!

[SuperStinger]

Hi all

This is just a curious question

If i have nested structs that need to be accessed like this inside a function...

struct1->struct2->struct3->data_int = 1;
struct1->struct2->struct3->data_char = 'D';

Is it in any way better to assign the pointer to a variable and use that to access the struct...

random_struct* struct_pointer = struct1->struct2->struct3;
struct_pointer->data_int = 1;
struct_pointer->data_char = 'D';

I understand that this makes code much easier to read and write ( I am accessing the same struct about 10 - 15 times each function ), but does is it actually practical performance wise?

Many thanks, Super_Stinger

[Tresky]

My best opinion would say that it would perform about the same. However, a 3 layer nested structure isn't very common. It's usually best to avoid going more than one nest. What is the reason for this nest-ception?

[SuperStinger]

Hi Tresky, cheers for reply

The reason for this intense nest-ception is because im working with a graphics library called SDL ( Simple DirectMedia Layer ). Things like events require you to access event.key.keysym.sym and that would probably be inside another struct.

Note: I am programming in C only, not C++

If maybe theres a better design principle to follow, im all ears open :D!

EDIT:
Another thing also is that i am passing alot of parameters to my functions ( can be up to 8 or 9 args ). I was also constantly having to pass either the screen pointer or event pointer to every function. So i thought why not put it in one struct, so the function can get what it needs from the struct.

Many thanks, Super_Stinger

[Thumper]

It's not so much nested structs that you have here as it is a struct that has a member variable that's another struct that has a member variable that's another struct.

The only difference between the two snippets you provided is you create an extra pointer in the latter, which is an additional 4 bytes of memory that your program uses (8 if it's a 64-bit application) temporarily in the scope of whatever function that is. (Although the two snippets might be optimized to the same thing, i'm not entirely sure).
IMO 4 bytes of very temporarily used stack memory is a small price to pay to reduce the code size by a significant amount. I think the days where we had to worry about that insignificant of an amount of memory being used are over far over.

[SuperStinger]

Ahaha, getting tips from the veteran than :P

Cheers for replies, im always looking for better ways to design my code