Re: Prevent macro expansion of mblen

[gdr at codesourcery dot com]

Richard Henderson <rth@redhat.com> writes:

| On Thu, Dec 28, 2000 at 07:28:11PM +0100, Gabriel Dos Reis wrote:
| > But protecting the macro expansion doesn't make 'mblen' to have C
| > linkage.
| 
| So surely all that was needed is to add `extern "C"' to the
| original patch? 

Ok.

| ... (Though frankly I don't understand the 
| implications of C linkage on an inline function.)

It is quality of implementation issue.  The intent is twofold:

 1) help the compiler catch at compile-time constructs like:

	#include <xxx.h> // this happpens to include <stdlib.h>
			 // the user doesn't know

	// The following is silly, but happens in user code from time to
	// time. 
	namespace MyNamespace {
	
		// my "improved" version
		int mblen(const char* p, int l)	// WRONG
		{ /* ... */ }
	}

 2) support existing practice (mainly in the C community)

	int f()
	{
		extern int mblen(const char*, int);
		// ...
	}

-- Gaby
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