C/C++ Syntax Reference - Declaring Pointers to Structs

Declaring a Pointer to a Struct

The syntax for declaring struct instances in C and C++ differs. In C, if you do not typedef the struct, you must precede the name of struct type the keyword struct. In C++, this is not required. In either case, to declare a pointer to a struct, you simply precede the name of the instance with a *.

In C++:

struct_name *struct_instance;

In C:

struct_name_t *struct_instance;  /* struct_name_t must be a typedef */

struct struct_name *struct_instance;