Issue 0013.04: When is a struct type complete?

This issue has been automatically converted from the original issue lists and some formatting may not have been preserved.

Authors: Sam Kendall, WG14
Date: 1992-12-10
Reference document: X3J11/90-047
Submitted against: C90
Status: Fixed
Fixed in: C90 TC1
Converted from: dr.htm, dr_013.html

When a structure is incomplete

Reference subclause 6.5.2.3, page 62, lines 25-28:

If a type specifier of the form

struct-or-union  identifier

occurs prior to the declaration that defines the content, the structure or union is an incomplete type.

In the following example, neither the second nor the third occurrence of struct foo seem adequately covered by this sentence:

struct foo {
         struct foo *p;
 } a[sizeof(struct foo)];

In the second occurrence foo is incomplete, but since the occurrence is within “the declaration that defines the content,” it cannot be said to be “prior” that declaration. In the third occurrence foo is complete, but again, the occurrence is within the declaration.

To fix the problem, change the phrase “prior to the declaration” to “prior to the end of the struct-declaration-list or enumerator-list.”

Comment from WG14 on 1997-09-23:

Correction

In subclause 6.5.2.3, page 62, line 27, change:

occurs prior to the declaration that defines the content

to:

occurs prior to the } following the struct-declaration-li st that defines the content