The code in drivers/ata/ uses an implementation of inheritance that I have not seen before. It's only briefly explained in the header file ( include/linux/libata.h:885): /* * ->inherits must be the last field and all the preceding * fields must be pointers. */ The structs are then initialized with .inherits assigned first: drivers/ata/sata_nv.c:475 static struct ata_port_operations nv_nf2_ops = { .inherits = &nv_generic_ops, .freeze = nv_nf2_freeze, .thaw = nv_nf2_thaw, }; Is this actually implementing inheritance? Why do all preceding fields need to be pointers? As far as I can tell, this style is only found in the ata drivers. Could anyone explain how this works? Thanks, Peter