Why do I have to prefix stat from <sys/stat.h> with the keyword struct?

Hi


I´m about learning C/C++ and after covering the language basics I´m now
heading for my first "real" application where I need to use the POSIX
stuff
for directory operations.

Here´s my problem: The following code compiles and runs as it should
inside
a linux g++ environment using code::blocks IDE. But when I drop
the "struct" prefix from line 12 "struct stat st;" It doesn´t compile any
more and it says:

|12|error: expected `;' before ‘st’
|12|warning: statement is a reference, not call, to function ‘stat’
|12|warning: statement has no effect
|18|error: ‘st’ was not declared in this scope

Hmm, what´s going on here? Why can I drop "struct" from line 1? IMHO
dirent
is just a struct as stat is. A similar behaviour can be found using the
cygwin environment under windows, so I guess it has nothing to do with
system dependent header files.


Any ideas?
Thanx in advance
Rolf



#include <iostream>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <sys/types.h>

using namespace std;

int main() {

    dirent *entry;
    struct stat st;

    DIR *base;
    base = opendir(".");

    while( (entry = readdir(base)) != 0) {
        stat(entry->d_name, &st);
        cout << entry->d_name << " :: " << st.st_mode  << endl;
    }

    closedir(base);

    return 0;
}