Is typedef ever required in C?

Question

Typedef is very useful for portable names, tag names (typedef struct foo Foo;) and keeping complicated (function) declarations readable (typedef int (*cmpfunc

Answer 1

From wikipedia:

typedef is a keyword in the C and C++ programming languages. The purpose of typedef is to assign alternative names to existing types, most often those whose standard declaration is cumbersome, potentially confusing, or likely to vary from one implementation to another.1

Based on that definition, no it's never required as you can always just write out the expanded form. However, there may be macro definitions which choose a typedef to use based on platform or something else. So always using the expanded form may not be very portable.