Structure variable initialization/definition in one go after variable declaration is done

Question

Can we define structure variable after its declaration or definition in one go? All together in single braces like

asd = {21,'H'};

Any particular reason if it cannot be done, since it can be defined in same line where it is being declared e.g.: struct asd = {21,'H'}; ?

struct test
{
    int a;
    char b;
}asd;  

asd = {21,'H'};   // error: expected an expression

Asked for C programming.

Answer 1

The explicit type cast is required:

struct test
{
    int a;
    char b;
} asd;  

asd = (struct test){21,'H'};

This code is roughly equivalent to the following one:

const struct test initialiser = {21,'H'};
... 
asd = initialiser;

The difference is that the compiler has an option to optimise the assignment of a value to the asd variable using assembler instructions with immediate values when such optimisation is more efficient than const structure copy initialisation.

As a 'side' effect this syntax is valid in both C and C++