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;
}

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))

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.