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From: geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re:  structure references in header files
Message-ID: <148@desint.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 14-Dec-85 01:36:09 EST
Article-I.D.: desint.148
Posted: Sat Dec 14 01:36:09 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 16-Dec-85 05:32:43 EST
References: <547@brl-tgr.ARPA> <2528@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning)
Organization: SAH Consulting, Manhattan Beach, CA
Lines: 24

People who want to write maximally portable should also note the following
technique, so that they can avoid it:

    typedef struct foo *ZAP;
    typedef struct bar *ZOW;

    struct foo
	{
	ZOW *zowie;
	};

    struct bar
	{
	ZAP zapped;
	};

Since pcc (and, I believe, the original pdp-11 compiler) treats typedefs
as macros, this works on those compilers.  However, it breaks lint, and
it breaks on many compilers that actually treat typedefs as types, since
the structs are undefined at the time of the typedef statement.
-- 

	Geoff Kuenning
	{hplabs,ihnp4}!trwrb!desint!geoff