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From: fred@mindcraft.com (Fred Zlotnick)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: typedef names (was: Is typedef char BUFFER[20] legal?)
Keywords: POSIX, reserved namespace
Message-ID: <665344102.6268@mindcraft.com>
Date: 31 Jan 91 17:48:19 GMT
References: <1212@tredysvr.Tredydev.Unisys.COM> <1991Jan29.210100.8105@zoo.toronto.edu>
Sender: fred@mindcraft.com (Fred Zlotnick)
Organization: Mindcraft, Inc.
Lines: 31

In article <1991Jan29.210100.8105@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <1212@tredysvr.Tredydev.Unisys.COM> paul@tredysvr.Tredydev.Unisys.COM (Paul Siu) writes:
> . . .
>>Can anyone also tell me what is the most common style convention for type
>>names, I usually put them all in capitals.
>
>Insofar as there is a consensus, it's to put them in lower case with a
>suffix "_t", e.g. "uid_t" as the type for userids.

While this has been the consensus, the POSIX.1 standard (ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990,
or IEEE 1003.1-1990 if you prefer) has reserved the "_t" namespace for
the system implementor.  (That is, application programs should not use
symbols ending in "_t").  The standard states (clause 2.7.2, lines 804-806):

	If any header defined by this part of ISO/IEC 9945 is included,
	all symbols with the suffix _t are reserved for use by the
	implementation, both before and after the #include directive.

So, if you want your programs to port to POSIX.1 conforming systems, this
convention is no longer ok.  I had previously used an "_t" suffix for
typedef names, but have stopped.  My current convention is to use "_T"
(and to use lower case letters for the rest of the type name), but I'm
not thrilled with it.  Any suggestions?
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