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From: spw2562@ritcv.UUCP (Fishhook)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Prepending _ in C external names necessary?
Message-ID: <9109@ritcv.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Dec-85 10:26:56 EST
Article-I.D.: ritcv.9109
Posted: Wed Dec  4 10:26:56 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Dec-85 03:13:39 EST
References: <200@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: spw2562@ritcv.UUCP (Fishhook)
Distribution: net
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
Lines: 27

In article <200@brl-tgr.ARPA> speck@cit-vlsi.arpa (Don Speck) writes:
>This purpose is served just as well by appending, rather than prepending,
>the underscore.  The former approach gives you a free extra character
>of significance in identifiers.
>
>	Don Speck	speck@cit-vlsi.arpa

Some assemblers (like ours) recognize a limited number of character(6(?)).
If identifier names in the source already exceed this length, appending
an underscore won't make any diff. example:

	  Function name:         With underscore:     Resulting symbol:
prepend:  dosomegoodstuff()      _dosomegoodstuff     _dosom
append:   dosomeotherstuff()     dosomeotherstuff_    dosome 

now suppose there's a symbol dosome defined by the assembler.  By prepending
you avoid a conflict.  with appending, you don't.

==============================================================================
        Steve Wall @ Rochester Institute of Technology
        USnail: 6675 Crosby Rd, Lockport, NY 14094, USA
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    Disclaimer:  What I just said may or may not have anything to do
                 with what I was actually thinking...