"const" globals are being handled as "static const" globals?

[Manfred Hollstein]

On Thu, 14 May 1998, 13:51:12, bgarcia@fore.com wrote:

 > 
 > If you define a variable within a file (global) like:
 > 
 >    const int foo = 1;
 > 
 > and compile it, you will find that egcs does _not_ give it global scope:
 > 
 >    > nm a.o
 >    00000000 r foo
 > 
 > That is, it is treating "foo" as a "static const" instead of just "const".
 > Removing the const gives the correct behavior:
 > 
 >    > nm a.o
 >    00000000 D foo
 > 
 > But then it isn't placed into a read-only section.

egcs is correct in doing it this way. The C++ standard is different
from ANSI-C with regard to const's. If you want your const to get
extern linkage, you need to define it as "extern":

$ cat t.cc
extern const int foo = 1;
$ /tools/gnu/packages/egcs/19980501/bin/gcc -c t.cc
$ nm t.o 
00000000 ? __FRAME_BEGIN__
00000000 R foo
00000000 t gcc2_compiled.

Like it, or not ;-)
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