Why should we typedef a struct so often in C?

Question

I have seen many programs consisting of structures like the one below typedef struct { int i; char k; } elem; elem user;Why is it needed so often? Any specific reason or applicable area?

Answer 1

You can declare the structure and a pointer to it's kind within the same block

typedef struct _TDataRec

{

//fields go here

} * TDataRec;