Why does C need "struct" keyword and not C++?
c, c++, compiler-construction
Solution
Syntactically both treat `struct` almost the same. Only C++ has added an extra rule that allows to omit the `struct` (and `class`) keyword if there is no ambiguity.
If there is ambiguity, also C++ requires the `struct` keyword in some places. A notorious example is `stat` on POSIX systems where there is a `struct stat` and a function `stat`.
Problem
I've always been a little confused about what's going on here: ``` #include <stdio.h> int main() { timeval tv; tv.tv_sec = 1; for (;;) { select(0, 0, 0, 0, &tv); printf("%s\n", "Hello World!"); } } ``` Sorry if that doesn't compile, just wrote it as a quick example. Code like this won't compile under gcc unless I add the keyword struct prior to the use of the struct timeval. g++ on the other hand handles it fine as is. Is this a difference between how C and C++ handle structures or is it just a difference in the compilers? (I'm very C++ oriented, and the use of struct in C on lines like this has always somewhat baffled me).