[net.lang.c] A followup to my typedefs article

reg@vaxine.UUCP (Rick Genter) (03/07/84)

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     A week ago I posted an article asking for opinions regarding the place of
typedefs in C programming style.  The responses I have received to date have
been overwhelming.  There is an almost unanimous feeling amongst programmers on
the net that typedefs have little or no value.  The only cautiously positive
note I received was from one user who said (and I paraphrase):

        Typedefing structs are ok, but arrays and * (pointer) types
        should be left alone.

He then went on to say the only exception to the pointer rule was

        typedef char    *String;

which was "obvious."

     I thank everyone who responded to my query.

                                        Rick Genter
                                        Automatix Inc.
                                        linus!vaxine!reg

gwyn@brl-vgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (03/09/84)

I don't understand the results of your typedef "poll".
Typedefs help MOST when they are applied to pointers.

I use typedefs sparingly, since they do not add any real power to the
C language.  The main usage I have is

	typedef int	bool;

so I can carefully distinguish between booleans and integers.  If "lint"
would not consider a "bool" so defined to be also an "int" it would help.