Typedef struct vs just struct

Posted on 16th Feb 2014 07:03 pm by admin

Anyone know the rationale for using typedef for structs when a struct is itself a typedef? I have seen this in just about every book I have ever read, never with any explanation, yet I know from extensive personal experience that the end result is exactly the same (at least on all compilers from the last 10 years). Is it nothing more than an effort to save typing 'struct' on the variable declarations (and that not even needed in C++)? For instance, this all seems to be the same:

Code: typedef struct { int i; } bob; struct nob { int i; }; bob b; struct nob n;

I have heard people adamantly argue that everything should be typdef-ed as a way to make maintenance easier, but in my experience when you change a data type you still need to examine every single place it is used in the entire code base to make sure you aren't creating bugs with the type change, so I don't see the maintenance benefit. I find it a lot more useful to know what an object type is without needing to constantly look up what the heck the typedef really is (of course, for structs that doesn't help). Good IDEs will make that process less painful, but I have found my ability to maintain code is actually decreased with the extensive use of typedefs.

So, any arguments for the use of typedefs?

Your Answer:

Login to answer

Other forums

How to return to a previous page after running a PHP script
I'm having a bit of a melt down here because I think this should be really easy but can't work it ou

PHP Code reffering to database, doing something wrong.. pls help
Well i am quite new with PHP
and for school we have to make a PHP script which reffers to a Data

Table control is disappearing from Screen
Hi Experts,

I have a screen with multiple table control(TC). Each table control has two c

Need help in Generating Combinations
Need help generating all possible combination of names in an array

Lets say i have the follow

How to show a complete textarea ??
I enter Client Case Notes notes in a textarea field on a PHP form. The field is 5 rows deep and 70 c

Problems generating word documents on server side for security reasons
I have a problem with word documentation generation when generating a word document (docx) with PHP.

Need help PLEASE
ok i have this warning showing up

Warning: in_array() [function.in-array]: Wrong datatype for

Turning Data into URLs?
This may seem very basic to you, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to do this since I don'

dinamic "textboxes"?
Ey all, my first post here, i hope its not a hard one

I display mysql results in a table

session variable problem
Session variable is not working in Fire fox i am getting null value but it is working fine in IE.