Ensure use of custom types

Question

Considering this answer for the benefit of typedefs on basic types and why they are used, is there any way to ensure that in your project you did not use a basic type and used the typedef counterparts?

Answer 1

If you really, absolutely want to ban native types but allow typedefs, I guess you can always do something like:

#include <stdint.h>

#define int please_use_stdint_typedefs_rather_than_native_types

int main()
{
    int32_t good;  // Good typedef.
    int evil;      // Evil native type.
}

---

$ gcc -c int_forbidden.c 
int_forbidden.c: In function ‘main’:
int_forbidden.c:8: error: ‘please_use_stdint_typedefs_rather_than_native_types’ undeclared (first use in this function)
int_forbidden.c:8: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
int_forbidden.c:8: error: for each function it appears in.)
int_forbidden.c:8: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘evil’

That said, I don't think outright banning native types is a good idea in the general case.

Answer 2

You can make these typedefs Strong Typedefs as proposed in this boost library : http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_40_0/boost/strong_typedef.hpp