What does the postfix "_t" stand for in C?

c naming-conventions postfix-operator
willc2 picture willc2 · Sep 8, 2009 · Viewed 17.6k times · Source

Possible Duplicate:
What does a type followed by _t (underscore-t) represent?

While typing in my IDE (Xcode), autocomplete pops up already-defined words when I'm partway thru entering some variable name. I occasionally see names that have '_t' at the end of them.

  1. What naming convention is that and what does it mean?

  2. Is there a reference document to look up pre- and post-fixes in common use?

Searching with the term "postfix" gives me a lot of GoogleNoise about the mail server of the same name.

Answer

Sufian picture Sufian · Sep 8, 2009

The t stands for "type" or "typedef." You'll see a lot of POSIX headers (and others) with time_t, size_t, and others. These which hold (not necessarily defined) specific bit-sizes based on the operating system and machine architecture.

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