C programming: Dereferencing pointer to incomplete type error

Question

I have a struct defined as:

struct {
 char name[32];
 int  size;
 int  start;
 int  popularity;
} stasher_file;

and an array of pointers to those structs:

struct stasher_file *files[TOTAL_STORAGE_SIZE];

In my code, I'm making a pointer to the struct and setting its members, and adding it to the array:

 ...
 struct stasher_file *newFile;
 strncpy(newFile->name, name, 32);
 newFile->size = size;
 newFile->start = first_free;
 newFile->popularity = 0;
 files[num_files] = newFile;
 ...

I'm getting the following error:

error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type

whenever I try to access the members inside newFile. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You haven't defined struct stasher_file by your first definition. What you have defined is an nameless struct type and a variable stasher_file of that type. Since there's no definition for such type as struct stasher_file in your code, the compiler complains about incomplete type.

In order to define struct stasher_file, you should have done it as follows

struct stasher_file {
 char name[32];
 int  size;
 int  start;
 int  popularity;
};

Note where the stasher_file name is placed in the definition.

Answer 2

You are using the pointer newFile without allocating space for it.

struct stasher_file *newFile = malloc(sizeof(stasher_file));

Also you should put the struct name at the top. Where you specified stasher_file is to create an instance of that struct.

struct stasher_file {
    char name[32];
    int  size;
    int  start;
    int  popularity;
};

Answer 3

How did you actually define the structure? If

struct {
  char name[32];
  int  size;
  int  start;
  int  popularity;
} stasher_file;

is to be taken as type definition, it's missing a typedef. When written as above, you actually define a variable called stasher_file, whose type is some anonymous struct type.

Try

typedef struct { ... } stasher_file;

(or, as already mentioned by others):

struct stasher_file { ... };

The latter actually matches your use of the type. The first form would require that you remove the struct before variable declarations.

Answer 4

the case above is for a new project. I hit upon this error while editing a fork of a well established library.

the typedef was included in the file I was editing but the struct wasn't.

The end result being that I was attempting to edit the struct in the wrong place.

If you run into this in a similar way look for other places where the struct is edited and try it there.