forward references in typedefs

[George M. Jones]

I have noticed what I consider anomolous behavior when using forward references
in structs & typedefs and would would like to know whether things behave as
they do because (a) that's just the way the compilers choose to implement
a fuzzy point or (b) there is some definition (ansi, K&R) that say this is
[in]correct behavior.


The following code compiles (Sun, GCC, Green Hills) just fine as expected:

  struct one
    {
      struct two_t *foo;
    } one_t;
  
  struct two
    {
      struct one_t *bar;
    } two_t;


However all the compilers I tried appear to be choaking on the forward 
reference to two_t in the following chunk of code

  typedef struct one
    {
      two_t *foo;
    } one_t;
  
  typedef struct two
    {
      one_t *bar;
    } two_t;
  4:35pm> cc -c bad.c
  "bad.c", line 3: syntax error at or near variable name "two_t"
  "bad.c", line 4: zero sized structure

Any definitive answers from the knowledgable clientel of this newsgroup ?

Thanks,
---George Jones



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