struct definition

[chrismiceli]

I am relatively new to c, and I get structures and how they work, but in my c book it says to declare them like this

struct name {
type name;
} variable

or you can do this

struct name {
type name;
}
struct name variable;

I saw the other day that you don't need to give the structure a name, you can just do this
struct {
type name;
} variable

they both work, can someone explain this to me, why is there two ways?

[Prelude]

The first two create a named structure. You can make multiple variables of a named structure throughout your program. The last creates an unnamed structure, you can only create variables of that structure at the structure declaration:

struct A {
    ...
} var1; /* Good */

...

struct A var2; /* Good */

struct {
    ...
} var; /* Good */

/* You can't make any more variables of the unnamed structure. */

[chrismiceli]

thanx