How can I learn which element in a union is currently active?

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VLSI Trainer Specialist in Front-End Design & Digital Systems

Actually, that question is really contrary to why I used unions in the first place — the idea was to be able to access one type of data AS IF it was another type. So, for instance, to dissect a floating point value into bytes, or to take a bunch of bytes and interpret as a long or a string, or … So,...
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Actually, that question is really contrary to why I used unions in the first place — the idea was to be able to access one type of data AS IF it was another type. So, for instance, to dissect a floating point value into bytes, or to take a bunch of bytes and interpret as a long or a string, or … So, in this use case, there is no *active* element — each element is just another way of interpreting the same chunk of memory. But, if you are using the union as a “catch all” type of structure, to be able to store any kind of value, but you need to know what type is stored there, then by all means add a “type” element to an enclosing struct, as suggested by others. read less
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