Throughout this course, we have defined many different variable types like, int and char. These are known as the basic types and are built-in to C.

We’ve also defined data types like arrays and pointers which are known as derived types. Derived types tend to be a collection of basic types to create a new, more powerful data type. We will now explore another derived type, the structure.

In C, structures allow programmers to create user-defined data types. Structures, like arrays, allow you to collect many data types into one single data type. But unlike arrays, structures can be a collection of multiple data types.

The above image represents a structure and the different types of variables contained within it. This type of “packaging” is beneficial because it helps build and pass around logically related data in a single user-defined data type.