Assigning Values to the struct

The assembly language program continues by assigning values into the dynamically allocated block of memory:

  # initialize the first struct       
  li      $t0,34            # store 34
  sw      $t0,0($s1)        # in age
  lw      $t0,pay           # store 24000
  sw      $t0,4($s1)        # in pay
  li      $t0,12            # store 12
  sw      $t0,8($s1)        # in class

Here is how the C program does this:

  empA->age = 34;
  empA->pay = 24000;
  empA->class = 12;

The pointer variable empA holds the address of a block of memory, just as does the register $s1.

The expression empA->pay means to go to the block of memory at the address in empA, then use the bytes where pay is located.