Mayhaps because the structure was originally stack-allocated, or because the dev...

tom_mellior · on April 23, 2017

> Or because the structure is used outside of linked list contexts

That use case is possible with the particular implementation that is now used by curl:

    struct fileinfo {
      struct curl_fileinfo info;
      struct curl_llist_element list;
    };

You can use the payload (struct curl_fileinfo) outside of a list without incurring any overhead.

I think one of your other points is more likely, or simply "it was fast enough and we went for more interesting features than for such optimizations".

wbl · on April 23, 2017

One of the Plan 9 C enhancements makes this even easier by permitting the fields of these structs to be accessed directly.

generic_user · on April 24, 2017

you can do this now in ISO C11 with the inclusion of anaonomous structures and unions.

    struct A { 
        int x, y; 
    };

    struct B {
        union {
            struct A 2d;
            struct { int x, y; };
        }
        int z;
    };

    ...

    struct B foo;
    foo.x = foo.2d.y = foo.z = 0;

you can access x and y as members of B or A.