On Tue, Nov 08, 2005 at 12:18:42PM +1100, Neil Brown was heard to remark:
>
> Another reason for not using typedefs is that if you do, and you want
> to refer to the structure in some other include file, you have to
> #include the include file that devices the structure.
> If you don't use typedefs, you can just say:
>
> struct foo;
>
> and the compiler will happily wait for the complete definition later
> (providing it doesn't need the size in the meanwhile).
Yes, this is the "forward declaration" problem I was refering to.
Its unavoidable if structs have circular references to each other.
However, I've learned, by experience, several things by trying to
eliminate such forward declarations (and the related #include hell):
-- Its really, really hard, and right in the middle, you think,
"gosh this is a stupid idea, why am I bothering?"
-- When you get done, you think: "wow this new code structure
is so insanely better than the old code! The guy who wrote
the old code should be hung from a yardarm as an example!"
So having a mechanism that prevents coders from declaring
"struct foo" whenever they feel like it can be a good thing.
Of course, your milage may vary.
--linas
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