> In other words, C structs and C++ structs are not the same thing (although C++ can usually handle C structs too). C structs are Plain Old Data. C++ structs are "objects" and there are pages and pages of rules in the C++ Standard about what that means, and there's no way the C Standard can incorporate all that.
I think this glances over what structs actually are in C++, and unwittingly portrays them as something different.
Structs in C++ are definitely exact like structs in C. Or they can be, if that's what you're aiming for. If you include a C header file that defines a struct in a C++ program, you build it, and you use instances of that struct to pass them to C programs, everthing just works.
The detail you need to be mindful of is that C structs support a subset of all the features supported by C++ classes, and once you start to use those features C++ also allows implementations to forego some constraints.
If you expect to use a struct in C++ but still define it in a way that you make it include features that are not supported in C then you can't pin that on the language.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/cpp/trivial-standard-l...
Using C-like structs is a very common use case, to the point that the standard explicitly defines the concept of standard layout and builds upon that to specify the concept of a standard layout type. A struct/class that is a standard layout type, which means it's a POD type, corresponds exactly with C structs. They are explicitly defined in terms of retaining interoperability with other languages.
I think this glances over what structs actually are in C++, and unwittingly portrays them as something different.
Structs in C++ are definitely exact like structs in C. Or they can be, if that's what you're aiming for. If you include a C header file that defines a struct in a C++ program, you build it, and you use instances of that struct to pass them to C programs, everthing just works.
The detail you need to be mindful of is that C structs support a subset of all the features supported by C++ classes, and once you start to use those features C++ also allows implementations to forego some constraints.
If you expect to use a struct in C++ but still define it in a way that you make it include features that are not supported in C then you can't pin that on the language.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/cpp/trivial-standard-l...
Using C-like structs is a very common use case, to the point that the standard explicitly defines the concept of standard layout and builds upon that to specify the concept of a standard layout type. A struct/class that is a standard layout type, which means it's a POD type, corresponds exactly with C structs. They are explicitly defined in terms of retaining interoperability with other languages.