C language union

In the C programming language, a union is a datatype. The union may consist of different fields, each with different types. The space taken up by the union is the same as the largest of the individual types (plus padding) - and all the fields within the union have the same address as the union itself. For example

union {

int a;

double b;

} c;

Will make a union called 'c', which has an integer component and a double component. Either of these can be used, but if 'a' is updated, 'b', will be clobbered, and vice versa. According to the C standard, it is invalid to read 'b' if 'a' was last written to, although on many implementations this gives useful behaviour.

See also :

Mathematical union - Set theoretic union.