Note that something like this is actually part of C99 (but not of C++ - the C++ grammar was apparently too tortured to support this): struct example_t {

Note that something like this is actually part of C99 (but not of C++ - the C++ grammar was apparently too tortured to support this): struct example_t { int foo, bar, baz; } example = { .foo = 1, .bar = 42, }; /* unnamed members are implicitly set to 0 / NULL */ assert(example.baz == 0); combined with compound literals, you can do stuff like example = (struct example_t){ .foo = 2, .baz = 1 }; assert(example_cmp(&example, &(struct example_t){ .foo = 2 }) == 0); It's one of C99's neater features, I think. I can imagine C++ programmers liking something like iod.