That's a fine question to ask. Yes, using a typedef for this purpose is good practice. It's debatable if it's a good idea to add the abstraction of a typedef

That's a fine question to ask. Yes, using a typedef for this purpose is good practice. It's debatable if it's a good idea to add the abstraction of a typedef if you don't need the flexibility, but if you are trying to write generic code in C, a typedef like this is the best approach. The only real alternative would be a a preprocessor define, which is even more "heavyweight". A define written in uppercase might be better if you want to signify that it's something changeable, but the typedef is probably slightly safer. The real issue here is not the typedef, but the name choice. "float_t" is a reserved name, and it's unlikely to be a good idea to typedef a reserved name. Counter to common practice, all typenames ending with "_t" are actually reserved by Posix[1] and thus arguably should be avoided for user code. [1] http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Reserved-Names.html http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Reserved-N...