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Is this because, as I recall, a DIR object is opaque while a FILE is not? Allowing the former to be expanded without breaking the API?

edit: Nevermind, that shouldn't matter should it? The important thing is that they're both by reference.

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FILE can be opaque. Some implementations made the (arguable) mistake of implementing e.g. fileno() as a macro that accesses FILE internals, and this means they can't change that layout without breaking libc ABI of existing programs. But you can implement all POSIX stdio FILE APIs with an opaque FILE.

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