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From: smb@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Steven M. Bellovin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: "Type-safe" Linkage?
Keywords: C++ 2.0
Message-ID: <12328@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>
Date: 27 Oct 89 01:40:25 GMT
References: <2118@leah.Albany.Edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 34

In article <2118@leah.Albany.Edu>, bv3456@leah.albany.edu (Victor @ The Concrete Museum) writes:
> 
> I thought I read somewhere on this group that C++ now has "type-safe"
> linkage.  Is this so, or was I halucinating?  If such a feature exists,
> how is it done?

Yes, it's true.  It's done by name-mangling; if you have a function
foo, it will be emitted as something quite ghastly by cfront.
For example, cfront translated this:

	int foo() {return 0;};
	int foo(char s) {return s;};
	int foo(char s, char t) {return s;};

into this:

	int foo__Fv (){ 
		return (int )0 ;
	}

	int foo__Fc (__0s )char __0s ;
	{ 
		return (int )__0s ;
	}

	int foo__FcT1 (__0s , __0t )char __0s ;
	char __0t ;
	{ 
		return (int )__0s ;
	}


(I've run it through cb to make things vaguely comprehensible.)
Makes using a debugger fun, too, though there's an name-demangler program.