Initializing array of structures

my_data is a struct with name as a field and data[] is arry of structs, you are initializing each index. read following:

5.20 Designated Initializers:

In a structure initializer, specify the name of a field to initialize with .fieldname =' before the element value. For example, given the following structure,

struct point { int x, y; };

the following initialization

struct point p = { .y = yvalue, .x = xvalue };

is equivalent to

struct point p = { xvalue, yvalue };

Another syntax which has the same meaning, obsolete since GCC 2.5, is fieldname:', as shown here:

struct point p = { y: yvalue, x: xvalue };

You can also write:

my_data data[] = {
    { .name = "Peter" },
    { .name = "James" },
    { .name = "John" },
    { .name = "Mike" }
};

as:

my_data data[] = {
    [0] = { .name = "Peter" },
    [1] = { .name = "James" },
    [2] = { .name = "John" },
    [3] = { .name = "Mike" }
}; 

or:

my_data data[] = {
    [0].name = "Peter",
    [1].name = "James",
    [2].name = "John",
    [3].name = "Mike"
}; 

Second and third forms may be convenient as you don't need to write in order for example all of the above example are equivalent to:

my_data data[] = {
    [3].name = "Mike",
    [1].name = "James",
    [0].name = "Peter",
    [2].name = "John"
}; 

If you have multiple fields in your struct (for example, an int age), you can initialize all of them at once using the following:

my_data data[] = {
    [3].name = "Mike",
    [2].age = 40,
    [1].name = "James",
    [3].age = 23,
    [0].name = "Peter",
    [2].name = "John"
}; 

To understand array initialization read Strange initializer expression?

Additionally, you may also like to read @Shafik Yaghmour's answer for switch case: What is “…” in switch-case in C code

There are only two syntaxes at play here.

1. Plain old array initialisation:

   int x[] = {0, 0}; // x[0] = 0, x[1] = 0
   

2. A designated initialiser. See the accepted answer to this question: How to initialize a struct in accordance with C programming language standards

   The syntax is pretty self-explanatory though. You can initialise like this:

   struct X {
       int a;
       int b;
   }
   struct X foo = { 0, 1 }; // a = 0, b = 1
   

   or to use any ordering,

   struct X foo = { .b = 0, .a = 1 }; // a = 1, b = 0
   

There's no "step-by-step" here. When initialization is performed with constant expressions, the process is essentially performed at compile time. Of course, if the array is declared as a local object, it is allocated locally and initialized at run-time, but that can be still thought of as a single-step process that cannot be meaningfully subdivided.

Designated initializers allow you to supply an initializer for a specific member of struct object (or a specific element of an array). All other members get zero-initialized. So, if my_data is declared as

typedef struct my_data {
  int a;
  const char *name;
  double x;
} my_data;

then your

my_data data[]={
    { .name = "Peter" },
    { .name = "James" },
    { .name = "John" },
    { .name = "Mike" }
};

is simply a more compact form of

my_data data[4]={
    { 0, "Peter", 0 },
    { 0, "James", 0 },
    { 0, "John", 0 },
    { 0, "Mike", 0 }
};

I hope you know what the latter does.