Question

I writing some ADT on C:
I have two file date.c and date.h
inside date.c I have:

typedef struct Date_t {
 int date;
 char* month;
 int year;

} Date;

inside date.h I have:

typedef Date pDate;

compiler gives me errors:

..\checking.h:15: error: syntax error before "pDate"

can somebody please explain what is wrong with my typedef, thanks in advance

EDIT:

with files all is ok, problem is, when I change my struct to:

struct Date_t {
     int date;
     char* month;
     int year;
    
    };

and pointer to:

typedef struct Date_t* pDate;

program works perfectly, so I want to understand the difference

Answer 1

You are probably declaring pDate as a typedef of Date before you even declared Date (since you are make pDate in the header).

You could do:

typedef struct Date_t {
 int date;
 char* month;
 int year;

} Date;

typedef Date pDate;

All in you .c file.

As for your edit:

You are declaring the struct in the typedef:

typedef struct Date_t* pDate;

It is working because you are declaring struct before you place pDate.

typedef /*see this struct here*/ struct /*huh?*/ Date_t* pDate;

The other has no struct in it.