Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!haven!ncifcrf!kml
From: kml@ncifcrf.gov (Kevin Lahey)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: problem with cc compiler
Summary: How to avoid name collisions with library functions?
Message-ID: <1185@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov>
Date: 23 Jul 89 19:46:34 GMT
References: <712@unsvax.NEVADA.EDU> <10589@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: kml@ncifcrf.gov (Kevin Lahey)
Organization: NCI Supercomputer Center, Frederick, MD
Lines: 34

In article <10589@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>In article <712@unsvax.NEVADA.EDU> willey@arrakis.uucp (James P. Willey) says:
>>... I finally realized that the function name "read" was the culprit.
>
>I assume that your problem was that getchar() eventually called read(),
>expecting the version in the system's C library, but instead found one
>you had written as part of your program.
>
>Standard-conforming C implementations are quite constrained in this
>regard, and would not have invoked your read() function by mistake.

Yow!  Could you elaborate on this?  I don't quite understand. 

Certainly, had he made a declaration:

static read () { blah blah }

then I could see how to avoid a collision.  I just don't quite see 
how to insure that a regular function declaration doesn't override
a library function.  Assuming that this magic system works (I don't
doubt that it does), how can one override a library function when desired?

I made a brief perusal of the second edition of K & R, but I was
not enlightened.  Could you give me some pointers about where to look?
Obviously, I'm not all up on the new ANSI-C stuff, but I want to be.

Thanks,
Kevin

kml@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov         NCI Supercomputer Center, Frederick, Maryland
kml@mosquito.cis.ufl.edu        UF CIS Department, Gainesville, Florida 
 
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time 
to reform.               -- Mark Twain