Use offsetof() to find the offset from the start of z or from the start of x.

offsetof() - offset of a structure member

SYNOPSIS

   #include <stddef.h>

   size_t offsetof(type, member);

offsetof() returns the offset of the field member from the start of the structure type.

EXAMPLE

   #include <stddef.h>
   #include <stdio.h>
   #include <stdlib.h>

   int
   main(void)
   {
       struct s {
           int i;
           char c;
           double d;
           char a[];
       };

       /* Output is compiler dependent */

       printf("offsets: i=%ld; c=%ld; d=%ld a=%ld\n",
               (long) offsetof(struct s, i),
               (long) offsetof(struct s, c),
               (long) offsetof(struct s, d),
               (long) offsetof(struct s, a));
       printf("sizeof(struct s)=%ld\n", (long) sizeof(struct s));

       exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
   }

You will get the following output on a Linux, if you compile with GCC:

       offsets: i=0; c=4; d=8 a=16
       sizeof(struct s)=16

The approach you've outlined is roughly correct, although you should use offsetof instead of attempting to figure out the offset on your own. I'm not sure why you mention memset -- it sets the contents of a block to a specified value, which seems quite unrelated to the question at hand.

Here's some code to demonstrate how it works:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stddef.h>

typedef struct x {
    int member_a;
    int member_b;
} x;

int main() { 
    x *s = malloc(sizeof(x));
    char *base;
    size_t offset;
    int *b;

    // initialize both members to known values
    s->member_a = 1;
    s->member_b = 2;

    // get base address
    base = (char *)s;

    // and the offset to member_b
    offset = offsetof(x, member_b);

    // Compute address of member_b
    b = (int *)(base+offset);

    // write to member_b via our pointer
    *b = 10;

    // print out via name, to show it was changed to new value.
    printf("%d\n", s->member_b);
    return 0;
}

You can use the offsetof macro, along with the C++11 static_assert feature, such as follows:

struct A {
     int i;
     double db;
     ...
     unsigned test;
};

void TestOffset() {
     static_assert( offsetof( A, test ) == KNOWN_VALUE, "The offset of the \"test\" variable must be KNOWN_VALUE" );
}

The offsetof() macro takes two arguments. The C99 standard says (in §7.17 <stddef.h>):

offsetof(type, member-designator)

which expands to an integer constant expression that has type size_t, the value of which is the offset in bytes, to the structure member (designated by member-designator), from the beginning of its structure (designated by type). The type and member designator shall be such that given

static type t;

then the expression &(t.member-designator) evaluates to an address constant.

So, you need to write:

offsetof(struct mystruct1, u_line.line);

However, we can observe that the answer will be zero since mystruct1 contains a union as the first (and only) member, and the line part of it is one element of the union, so it will be at offset 0.

How about the standard offsetof() macro (in stddef.h)?

Edit: for people who might not have the offsetof() macro available for some reason, you can get the effect using something like:

#define OFFSETOF(type, field)    ((unsigned long) &(((type *) 0)->field))