S.O.S. Mathematics CyberBoard

I just have a quick question about C. I don't understand the primary purpose of 'typedef'. I have read my textbook but I still don't have a clear idea as to what typedef does. From what I gather(in my book typedef is introduced in the context of arrays), typedef defines a type and acts as a kind of definition shortcut in programs. That's all I (think)understand about it. Can someone please give me an explanation. I'm finding it to be quite difficult to understand and make use of - even after having read my textbook a few times.

If I recall correctly, typedef is basically a way for you to define something that is very long to type. That way once you defined it by typedefing it, you won't have to type that same long thing over and over again. It's used in creating structs, say if your struct is very huge (30+ members). Do you really want to type that all over your code?

Put simply, typedef is just a way to create a new data type name. As Corneo said, this is useful with structs:



Remember by default structs have public access so:



would create me... and so on, you get it.

-- X Conrad X

Another use for typedef is to define mnemonics for the standard data types. For example, you might do:


or


Then in your code, you could write things like:


which is easier to read, I suppose.

Thanks for the help. So for your example if say I wrote 'real g' then the compiler would take that 'g' as a variable of type double?

yes.

-- X Conrad X

Thanks GOD.