6.13 — Typedefs and type aliases

Typedefs allow the programmer to create an alias for a data type, and use the aliased name instead of the actual type name. Typedef literally stands for, “type definition”.

To declare a typedef, simply use the typedef keyword, followed by the type to alias, followed by the alias name:

By convention, typedef names are declared using a “_t” suffix. This helps indicate that the identifier represents a type, not a variable or function, and also helps prevent naming collisions with other identifiers.

Note that a typedef does not define a new type. Rather, it is simply an alias (another name) for an existing type. A typedef can be used interchangeably anywhere a regular type can be used.

Even though the following does not make sense semantically, it is valid C++:

typedefs and type aliases follow the same scoping rules as variables. The typedefs miles_t and speed_t are only usable in the main() function. If they were placed in another function, main() wouldn’t be able to access them. If they were placed outside of main(), in the global scope, all functions would be able to access them.

However, typedefs have a few issues. First, it’s easy to forget whether the type name or type definition come first. Which is correct?

I can never remember.

Second, the syntax for typedefs gets ugly with more complex types, particularly function pointers (which we will cover in future lesson 7.8 -- Function Pointers):

Type aliases

To help address these issues, an improved syntax for typedefs has been introduced that mimics the way variables are declared. This syntax is called a type alias.

Given the following typedef:

This can be declared as the following type alias:

The two are functionally equivalent.

Note that although the type alias syntax uses the “using” keyword, this is an overloaded meaning, and does not have anything to do with the using statements related to namespaces.

This type alias syntax is cleaner for more advanced typedefing cases, and should be preferred.

Using type aliases for legibility

One use for type aliases is to help with documentation and legibility. Data type names such as char, int, long, double, and bool are good for describing what type a function returns, but more often we want to know what purpose a return value serves.

For example, consider the following function:

We can see that the return value is an integer, but what does the integer mean? A letter grade? The number of questions missed? The student’s ID number? An error code? Who knows! Int does not tell us anything.

However, using a return type of testScore_t makes it obvious that the function is returning a type that represents a test score.

Using type aliases for easier code maintenance

Type aliases also allow you to change the underlying type of an object without having to change lots of code. For example, if you were using a short to hold a student’s ID number, but then later decided you needed a long instead, you’d have to comb through lots of code and replace short with long. It would probably be difficult to figure out which shorts were being used to hold ID numbers and which were being used for other purposes.

However, with a type alias, all you have to do is change using studentID_t = short; to using studentID_t = long;. However, caution is still necessary when changing the type of a type alias to a type in a different type family (e.g. an integer to a floating point value, or vice versa)! The new type may have comparison or integer/floating point division issues, or other issues that the old type did not.

Using type aliases for platform independent coding

Another advantage of type aliases is that they can be used to hide platform specific details. On some platforms, an int is 2 bytes, and on others, it is 4 bytes. Thus, using int to store more than 2 bytes of information can be potentially dangerous when writing platform independent code.

Because char, short, int, and long give no indication of their size, it is fairly common for cross-platform programs to use type aliases to define aliases that include the type’s size in bits. For example, int8_t would be an 8-bit signed integer, int16_t a 16-bit signed integer, and int32_t a 32-bit signed integer. Using type aliases in this manner helps prevent mistakes and makes it more clear about what kind of assumptions have been made about the size of the variable.

In order to make sure each aliased type resolves to a type of the right size, type aliases of this kind are typically used in conjunction with preprocessor directives:

On machines where integers are only 2 bytes, INT_2_BYTES can be #defined, and the program will be compiled with the top set of type aliases. On machines where integers are 4 bytes, leaving INT_2_BYTES undefined will cause the bottom set of type aliases to be used. In this way, int8_t will resolve to a 1 byte integer, int16_t will resolve to a 2 bytes integer, and int32_t will resolve to a 4 byte integer using the combination of char, short, int, and long that is appropriate for the machine the program is being compiled on.

This is exactly how the fixed width integers (like int8_t) that were introduced in C++11 (covered in lesson 4.6 -- Fixed-width integers and size_t) are defined!

This is also where the issue with int8_t being treated as a char comes from -- int8_t is a type alias of char, and thus is just an alias for a char rather than being a unique type. As a result:

This program prints:

a

not 97, because std::cout prints char as an ASCII character, not a number.

Using type aliases to make complex types simple

Although we have only dealt with simple data types so far, in advanced C++, you could see a variable and function declared like this:

Typing std::vector<std::pair<std::string, int> > everywhere you need to use that type can get cumbersome. It’s much easier to use a type alias:

Much better! Now we only have to type “pairlist_t” instead of std::vector<std::pair<std::string, int> >.

Don’t worry if you don’t know what std::vector, std::pair, or all these crazy angle brackets are yet. The only thing you really need to understand here is that type aliases allow you to take complex types and give them a simple name, which makes those types easier to work with and understand.

Quiz time

6.14 -- The auto keyword

Index

6.12 -- Using statements