最近偶然又看到了typeof这个东西，突然想不起咋回事了，不知道是不是老年痴呆的前兆。。。。废话不说了，来看一下。
首先typeof这个东西并不是ISO/IEC 9899:1999里的，也就是说不是标准C的运算符，这是gcc的一个扩展。在gcc的官方文档中单独列了一章来说这个东西（5.6 Referring to a Type with typeof） 。具体的内容如下：
Another way to refer to the type of an expression is with typeof. The syntax of using of
this keyword looks like sizeof, but the construct acts semantically like a type name defined
with typedef.
There are two ways of writing the argument to typeof: with an expression or with a
type. Here is an example with an expression:
typeof (x[0](1))
This assumes that x is an array of pointers to functions; the type described is that of the
values of the functions.
Here is an example with a typename as the argument::
typeof (int *)
Here the type described is that of pointers to int.
If you are writing a header file that must work when included in ISO C programs, write
__typeof__ instead of typeof. See Section 5.39 [Alternate Keywords], page 239.
A typeof-construct can be used anywhere a typedef name could be used. For example,
you can use it in a declaration, in a cast, or inside of sizeof or typeof.
typeof is often useful in conjunction with the statements-within-expressions feature.
Here is how the two together can be used to define a safe “maximum” macro that operates
on any arithmetic type and evaluates each of its arguments exactly once:
#define max(a,b) \
({ typeof (a) _a = (a); \
typeof (b) _b = (b); \
_a > _b ? _a : _b; })
The reason for using names that start with underscores for the local variables is to avoid
conflicts with variable names that occur within the expressions that are substituted for a
and b. Eventually we hope to design a new form of declaration syntax that allows you to
declare variables whose scopes start only after their initializers; this will be a more reliable
way to prevent such conflicts.
Some more examples of the use of typeof:
• This declares y with the type of what x points to.
typeof (*x) y;
• This declares y as an array of such values.
typeof (*x) y[4];
• This declares y as an array of pointers to characters:
typeof (typeof (char *)[4]) y;
It is equivalent to the following traditional C declaration:
char *y[4];
To see the meaning of the declaration using typeof, and why it might be a useful way
to write, let’s rewrite it with these macros:
#define pointer(T) typeof(T *)
#define array(T, N) typeof(T [N])
Now the declaration can be rewritten this way:
array (pointer (char), 4) y;
Thus, array (pointer (char), 4) is the type of arrays of 4 pointers to char.
Compatibility Note: In addition to typeof, GCC 2 supported a more limited extension
which permitted one to write
typedef T = expr;
with the effect of declaring T to have the type of the expression expr. This extension does
not work with GCC 3 (versions between 3.0 and 3.2 will crash; 3.2.1 and later give an error).
Code which relies on it should be rewritten to use typeof:
typedef typeof(expr) T;
This will work with all versions of GCC.
这里大概叙述了typeof是一个什么东西，怎么用，实际上可以用简单的话来重述。如果你对sizeof很熟悉的话，那么大可进行类推，sizeof（exp.）返回的是exp.的数据类型大小，那么typeof（exp.）返回的就是exp.的数据类型。值得注意的是在上面的话里我们可以看到，如果编译选项中指定了使用标准C，那么gcc的扩展使用可能会受到影响，不过在gcc编译条件下使用__typeof__依然可以正常工作，这和使用asm是一样的。当然如果是在其他的编译器条件下，这样做也不行了，只能自定义一个macro去使用，也就是说跟gcc没啥关系了，你愿意把typeof咋实现都可以。
下面写一个小程序示例一下:)
#include
typedef struct
{
int x;
char y;
}astruct, * pastrcut;
int main()
{
int sizem, sizew;
int x = 3;
typeof(&x) m;
sizem = sizeof(m);
*m = 5;
typeof(((astruct *)5)->y) w;
sizew = sizeof(w);
w = ''a'';
return 1;
}
首先看main函数里的m变量，这个变量的类型就是typeof(&x)， 由于x是int型的（这里与x是否被赋值一点关系都没有）所以&x应该是int *类型，那么typeof(&x)返回的类型就是int*，所以m自然也就是个int*类型的。之后我们看w变量，其类型是 typeof(((astruct *)0)->y)， 其中astruct是一个被定义的结构类型，其中的y元素是char*类型，那么((astruct *)0)->y是啥意思呢？在这里0并不是真正的变量，可以把它理解为一个替代使用的符号当然这个符号最好是一个数，其意思更可以理解为一个被赋值了的变量，这个数可以不是0，3也可以8也可以，随便什么都可以。那么((astruct *)0)->y仅仅就是表示了y这个变量，所以typeof的结果就是y元素的类型，也就是char。
下面是gcc编译后使用insight调试的结果：
这里看到实际上对于编译后的程序，typeof完全是透明的，和直接使用变量类型定义变量没有什么太大区别。
下面是结果：
可以看到变量的工作是完全正常的。
在linux中这个东西很常用，这里举一个最常见的例子（linux2.6.23）：
在list.h中有一个
/**
* list_entry - get the struct for this entry
* @ptr: the &struct list_head pointer.
* @type: the type of the struct this is embedded in.
* @member: the name of the list_struct within the struct.
*/
#define list_entry(ptr, type, member) \
container_of(ptr, type, member)
这个宏是linux中使用的链表的一个方法。其中我们可以看到 container_of(ptr, type, member)，这也是一个宏
在kernel.h中定义：
/**
* container_of - cast a member of a structure out to the containing structure
* @ptr: the pointer to the member.
* @type: the type of the container struct this is embedded in.
* @member: the name of the member within the struct.
*
*/
#define container_of(ptr, type, member) ({ \
const typeof( ((type *)0)->member ) *__mptr = (ptr); \
(type *)( (char *)__mptr - offsetof(type,member) );}
这里面就使用了我们上面示例中的一种typeof用法，其含义和上面所说的完全一样。
看过了typeof的用法和含义，我们不免想寻根溯源一下，那么就要看看gcc里面是怎么写的了。在gcc4.3的源码中（当然之前的gcc版本也都会有了:)）在gcc目录下有c-parser.c文件，顾名思义，这个就是解析器了。那么我们看看里面到底对typeof写了什么。
在
static const struct resword reswords[]中列出了gcc的关键字，其中就有typeof
在
static void c_parser_declspecs (c_parser *parser, struct c_declspecs *specs,
bool scspec_ok, bool typespec_ok, bool start_attr_ok) 中对gcc的关键字进行了处理，
case RID_TYPEOF:
/* ??? The old parser rejected typeof after other type
specifiers, but is a syntax error the best way of
handling this? */
if (!typespec_ok || seen_type)
goto out;
attrs_ok = true;
seen_type = true;
t = c_parser_typeof_specifier (parser);
declspecs_add_type (specs, t);
break;
上面这一段就是对typeof的处理，RID_TYPEOF是在reswords[]中定义的typeof的ID，那么关键环节就在于
t = c_parser_typeof_specifier (parser);这一句上了。
/* Parse a typeof specifier (a GNU extension).
typeof-specifier:
typeof ( expression )
typeof ( type-name )
*/
static struct c_typespec
c_parser_typeof_specifier (c_parser *parser)
{
struct c_typespec ret;
ret.kind = ctsk_typeof;
ret.spec = error_mark_node;
gcc_assert (c_parser_next_token_is_keyword (parser, RID_TYPEOF));
c_parser_consume_token (parser);
skip_evaluation++;
in_typeof++;
if (!c_parser_require (parser, CPP_OPEN_PAREN, "expected %<(%>"))
{
skip_evaluation--;
in_typeof--;
return ret;
}
if (c_parser_next_token_starts_typename (parser))
{
struct c_type_name *type = c_parser_type_name (parser);
skip_evaluation--;
in_typeof--;
if (type != NULL)
{
ret.spec = groktypename (type);
pop_maybe_used (variably_modified_type_p (ret.spec, NULL_TREE));
}
}
else
{
bool was_vm;
struct c_expr expr = c_parser_expression (parser);
skip_evaluation--;
in_typeof--;
if (TREE_CODE (expr.value) == COMPONENT_REF
&& DECL_C_BIT_FIELD (TREE_OPERAND (expr.value, 1)))
> error ("% applied to a bit-field");
ret.spec = TREE_TYPE (expr.value);
was_vm = variably_modified_type_p (ret.spec, NULL_TREE);
/* This should be returned with the type so that when the type
is evaluated, this can be evaluated. For now, we avoid
evaluation when the context might. */
if (!skip_evaluation && was_vm)
{
tree e = expr.value;
/* If the expression is not of a type to which we cannot assign a line
number, wrap the thing in a no-op NOP_EXPR. */
if (DECL_P (e) || CONSTANT_CLASS_P (e))
e = build1 (NOP_EXPR, void_type_node, e);
if (EXPR_P (e))
SET_EXPR_LOCATION (e, input_location);
add_stmt (e);
}
pop_maybe_used (was_vm);
}
c_parser_skip_until_found (parser, CPP_CLOSE_PAREN, "expected %<)%>");
return ret;
}
这些就是这个函数的处理过程。虽然内容看起来有些复杂，但是仔细观察就会看到其中有一句很值得我们注意：
ret.spec = TREE_TYPE (expr.value); 这是一句对返回值的赋值语句，也就是说，这句话的结果就是返回值的内容的一部分，expr是前面c_parser_expression (parser);的处理结果，得出的是表达式的内容，TREE_TYPE是tree.h中的一个宏：
/* In all nodes that are expressions, this is the data type of the expression.
In POINTER_TYPE nodes, this is the type that the pointer points to.
In ARRAY_TYPE nodes, this is the type of the elements.
In VECTOR_TYPE nodes, this is the type of the elements. */
#define TREE_TYPE(NODE) ((NODE)->common.type)
可以看出这个宏的结果大概就是一个type了，那么ret的结构里一共就有两个内容，一个是spec一个就是kind，kind在前面已经赋值过了，
/* A typeof specifier. */
ctsk_typeof
这个东西是C-tree.h中enum c_typespec_kind的里的一项，因此，ret的关键内容就是spec，由此我们就大概了解到，解析typeof的函数的返回结果就是一个type，这样我们也就理解了typeof的真正含义了。
好了，上面就是一些对于typeof的回顾，本人水平有限，谬误之处还请大家指正，谢谢！
