15.15 Cast to a Union Type

In GNU C, you can explicitly cast any of the alternative types to the union type; for instance,

(union eight_bytes) (long long) 5

makes a value of type union eight_bytes which gets its contents through the alternative named big_int_elt.

The value being cast must exactly match the type of the alternative, so this is not valid:

(union eight_bytes) 5  /* Error!  5 is int. */

A cast to union type looks like any other cast, except that the type specified is a union type. You can specify the type either with union tag or with a typedef name (see Defining Typedef Names).

Using the cast as the right-hand side of an assignment to a variable of union type is equivalent to storing in an alternative of the union:

union foo u;

u = (union foo) x   means   u.i = x

u = (union foo) y   means   u.d = y

You can also use the union cast as a function argument:

void hack (union foo);
…
hack ((union foo) x);