Sure, structs and functions that modify structs are the bare mechanisms provided by C. From the higher-level point of view, structs may represent objects and a

Sure, structs and functions that modify structs are the bare mechanisms provided by C. From the higher-level point of view, structs may represent objects and a constructor is then just a piece of code (possibly implemented a function) that initializes a struct, and a destructor frees any memory it owns (if the struct does not contain any pointers, destroying it is just a no-op). Initializer and de-initializer might be better terms. There are certainly non-examples of this pattern (with legitimate uses, for sure, but they can be avoided as a general rule). One is global variables. Another is creating an object in one part of a program and destroying it in another (as opposed to the start/end of the same function or block), or worse, in multiple possible locations.