Why should we typedef a struct so often in C?

Question

I have seen many programs consisting of structures like the one below

typedef struct 
{
    int i;
    char k;
} elem;

elem user;

Why is i

Answer 1

From an old article by Dan Saks (http://www.ddj.com/cpp/184403396?pgno=3):

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The C language rules for naming structs are a little eccentric, but they're pretty harmless. However, when extended to classes in C++, those same rules open little cracks for bugs to crawl through.

In C, the name s appearing in

struct s
    {
    ...
    };

is a tag. A tag name is not a type name. Given the definition above, declarations such as

s x;    /* error in C */
s *p;   /* error in C */

are errors in C. You must write them as

struct s x;     /* OK */
struct s *p;    /* OK */

The names of unions and enumerations are also tags rather than types.

In C, tags are distinct from all other names (for functions, types, variables, and enumeration constants). C compilers maintain tags in a symbol table that's conceptually if not physically separate from the table that holds all other names. Thus, it is possible for a C program to have both a tag and an another name with the same spelling in the same scope. For example,

struct s s;

is a valid declaration which declares variable s of type struct s. It may not be good practice, but C compilers must accept it. I have never seen a rationale for why C was designed this way. I have always thought it was a mistake, but there it is.

Many programmers (including yours truly) prefer to think of struct names as type names, so they define an alias for the tag using a typedef. For example, defining

struct s
    {
    ...
    };
typedef struct s S;

lets you use S in place of struct s, as in

S x;
S *p;

A program cannot use S as the name of both a type and a variable (or function or enumeration constant):

S S;    // error

This is good.

The tag name in a struct, union, or enum definition is optional. Many programmers fold the struct definition into the typedef and dispense with the tag altogether, as in:

typedef struct
    {
    ...
    } S;

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The linked article also has a discussion about how the C++ behavior of not requireing a typedef can cause subtle name hiding problems. To prevent these problems, it's a good idea to typedef your classes and structs in C++, too, even though at first glance it appears to be unnecessary. In C++, with the typedef the name hiding become an error that the compiler tells you about rather than a hidden source of potential problems.