Programming :: Directory Record Length Is Variable In Ext2 Filesystem?

The declaration for directory record length in ext2 filesystem is as follows:

Code:
#define EXT2_NAME_LEN 255
struct ext2_dir_entry_2 {
__u32 inode; /* Inode number */
__u16 rec_len; /* Directory entry length */
__u8 name_len; /* Name length */
__u8 file_type;
char name[EXT2_NAME_LEN]; /* File name */
};

Some say because the record is not in a fixed length so rec_len is the real record length. Why is the length of the array `name' not fixed? I thought C arrays like this should be fixed length. C99 has variable-length arrays, does this structure count on C99?