Linux

I'm sitting around doing IT shit waiting things to download/backup/install/etc and have nothing better to do, so here's an AI-free explanation with code samples:

It's basically just a code style thing. Standard C allows you to declare unnamed structs/unions within other structs/unions. They must be unnamed, so it'd look like this:

struct test {
        int a;
        struct {
                char b;
                float c;
        };
        double d;
};

Which is fine, but the -fms-extensions flag enables you to do the same thing with named structs. For example:

struct test {
        int a;
        struct test2 {
                char b;
                float c;
        };
        double d;
};

without -fms-extensions, the above will compile, but won't do what you might assume. b and c will be members of struct test2, not test. So something like this won't compile:

struct test my_test;
my_test.b = 1; // error: ‘struct test’ has no member named ‘b’

But with the flag, not only does it work, it also lets you do some convenient things like this:

struct test2 {
        char b;
        float c;
};
struct test {
        int a;
        struct test2;
        double d;
};
//...
struct test my_test;
my_test.b = 1; //OK

That is, you can reuse an existing struct definition, which gives you a nice little tool to organize your code.

Source: https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Unnamed-Fields.html