[Opencxx-users] Re: [opencxx] Re: ANSI C++/Gcc 3.2 compatibility patches

[Grzegorz J. <ja...@he...>]

On Mon, 10 Mar 2003, Michael Hohmuth wrote:

> Grzegorz Jakacki <ja...@he...> writes:
>
> > You have been added to the project. Currently Alexandre Tolmos is
> > finishing his commits wrt. gcc-3.x, there will be an annoucement once he
> > is done. Before this happens you may want to contact me if you think you
> > need any help on branching/merging.
>
> Thanks.
>
> I don't think I need any help with merging, but I would like to have
> some feedback.
>
> I observed that in the current CVS version (which supposedly already
> contains some or all of the previous GCC3 work), there appear some
> "using namespace std" declarations in header files.  This, to my eyes,
> is bad style.  I am working on a project that uses OpenC++ as a
> library, and there it potentially ``hurts'' if a header file imports
> the whole std namespace into the global namespace.

Agreed.

> So, once Alexandre is finished, I would like to undo these changes and
> instead revert to the style used in my patch:  The "using namespace
> std" declarations are only allowed to appear in .cc files, and .h
> files reference std symbols using qualified names.

Agreed. This is well covered in Herb Sutter's "More Exceptional C++", part
of it is accessible at http://www.gotw.ca/gotw/053.htm .

> There also is the issue of naming header files coming from standard
> C.  In my original patch, they are included as, for example, <cstring>
> instead of <string.h>, whereas the current CVS version uses the
> latter, older style.  Here, I am planning to leave it at the CVS
> version's style, because I think that it might be more portable.

There is a trade-off here. It is more portable, but pollutes namespace ---
functions from string.h are declared in global namespace, whereas
functions from cstring are declared in 'std'. This is not very relevant
when OpenC++ is compiled as application, but it is, when OpenC++ is used
as a library.

I would suggest that we stick to <cstring> style when writting new code,
so that eventually old header style is eliminated.

> Do you (Grzegorz, Alexande, or anyone else) have any objections?

Only the above.

Best regards
Grzegorz

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