Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!godot!ima!ISM780B!jim
From: jim@ISM780B.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: strings in defs.h force recompiles w
Message-ID: <112@ISM780B.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-Nov-84 12:41:16 EST
Article-I.D.: ISM780B.112
Posted: Sat Nov  3 12:41:16 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Nov-84 04:46:15 EST
Lines: 29
Nf-ID: #R:oliveb:-20600:ISM780B:25500063:000:1019
Nf-From: ISM780B!jim    Nov  1 19:18:00 1984

I have a different approach, which avoids the problem of having to have
def.h track strings.c, and of having the name of the string separate from
its text.  strings.c looks like

char NEWS_VERSION[] = "B 2.10.2 9/5/84";
char DFLTSUB[]      = "general,all.general";
char TMAIL[]        = "/usr/ucb/Mail";
char ADMSUB[]       = "general,all.announce";
char PAGE[]         = "/usr/ucb/more";
char NOTIFY[]       = "usenet";
char DFTXMIT[]      = "uux - -r -z %s!rnews < %s";
char UXMIT[]        = "uux -r -z -c %s!rnews '<' %s";
char DFTEDITOR[]    = "vi";

Either declare these in defs.h,

extern char NEWS_VERSION[],
	    DFLTSUB[],
	    ...

or only where needed.  The latter would avoid remaking everything whenever
you add or delete a string.

One thing to watch out for in this scheme or the
strings[n] scheme is that you can't take sizeof the strings.
You also cannot use them as initializers.  But for common use as error
formats or pathnames, this works pretty well.

-- Jim Balter, INTERACTIVE Systems (ima!jim)