I was looking through /usr/include/stdio.h
and happened to come across the following piece of code.
/* Standard streams. */
extern struct _IO_FILE *stdin; /* Standard input stream. */
extern struct _IO_FILE *stdout; /* Standard output stream. */
extern struct _IO_FILE *stderr; /* Standard error output stream. */
/* C89/C99 say they're macros. Make them happy. */
#define stdin stdin
#define stdout stdout
#define stderr stderr
My question is, where is this stucture struct _IO_FILE declared, i want to see the layout. and also the code mentions
#define stdin stdin
How is this supposed to work?
Answer
It's in /usr/include/libio.h (which is included in stdio.h) and struct defintion is:
struct _IO_FILE {
int _flags; /* High-order word is _IO_MAGIC; rest is flags. */
#define _IO_file_flags _flags
/* The following pointers correspond to the C++ streambuf protocol. */
/* Note: Tk uses the _IO_read_ptr and _IO_read_end fields directly. */
char* _IO_read_ptr; /* Current read pointer */
char* _IO_read_end; /* End of get area. */
char* _IO_read_base; /* Start of putback+get area. */
char* _IO_write_base; /* Start of put area. */
char* _IO_write_ptr; /* Current put pointer. */
char* _IO_write_end; /* End of put area. */
char* _IO_buf_base; /* Start of reserve area. */
char* _IO_buf_end; /* End of reserve area. */
/* The following fields are used to support backing up and undo. */
char *_IO_save_base; /* Pointer to start of non-current get area. */
char *_IO_backup_base; /* Pointer to first valid character of backup area */
char *_IO_save_end; /* Pointer to end of non-current get area. */
struct _IO_marker *_markers;
struct _IO_FILE *_chain;
int _fileno;
#if 0
int _blksize;
#else
int _flags2;
#endif
_IO_off_t _old_offset; /* This used to be _offset but it's too small. */
#define __HAVE_COLUMN /* temporary */
/* 1+column number of pbase(); 0 is unknown. */
unsigned short _cur_column;
signed char _vtable_offset;
char _shortbuf[1];
/* char* _save_gptr; char* _save_egptr; */
_IO_lock_t *_lock;
#ifdef _IO_USE_OLD_IO_FILE
};
I searched for the definition by looking at the preprocessed code:
echo '#include<stdio.h>' | gcc -E -