I have memory address of an struct store in int variable. Can I dereference the struct using this int value in C?

Question

I have address of an struct store in int variable. Can I dereference the struct??

say: int x = 3432234; // memory address of struct now I want to access the some struct from it.

I have been suggest these steps.

1. store the address in an int variable
2. cast that int to a struct pointer
3. then dereference it

But don't know how to apply.

Answer 1

If you have a struct foo, the easy way is to not use an int x but make the type a pointer-to-struct foo, struct foo *x. One can use the arrow operator to access members from a valid pointer directly.

#include <stdio.h>

struct foo { int a, b; };

int main(void) {
    struct foo foo = { 1, 2 };
    struct foo *x = &foo;
    printf("%d, %d\n", x->a, x->b);
}

Sometimes, hardware requirements complicate this, but this is the simple solution.