Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!gatech!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!ima!cfisun!lakart!dg
From: dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: forward references in typedefs
Message-ID: <632@lakart.UUCP>
Date: 27 Jul 89 16:07:07 GMT
References: <1989Jul20.152935.14872@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: Lakart Corporation, Newton, MA
Lines: 21

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) sez:
> The latter.  The language permits forward references with structure tags
> (specifically, "struct foo *x;" when foo has not yet been seen) but not
> the equivalent with typedefs.  That's just the way it is.
> 
> (Oh, you want to know *why*?  Basically, because typedefs are a royal pain
> to parse at the best of times, and forward references just complicate the
> issue hopelessly.

Also, have you considered the following:

typedef	a *b;

typedef b *a;

There, now your compiler is _REALLY_ confused :-)
-- 
	dg@lakart.UUCP - David Goodenough		+---+
						IHS	| +-+-+
	....... !harvard!xait!lakart!dg			+-+-+ |
AKA:	dg%lakart.uucp@xait.xerox.com		  	  +---+