Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: filenames for C++
Message-ID: <1988Apr24.085957.8413@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <724@acornrc.UUCP>, <1531@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 88 08:59:57 GMT

>	.C	??	AT&T
>	.c	.h	Guideleines
>	.cc	??	Gnu
>	.cxx	.hxx	Advantage
>	.cpp	.hpp	Zortech

Of these, I would say that Gnu's .cc is the clear winner.  It is not case-
sensitive, it distinguishes C++ code from C code, and within those
constraints it is the shortest (i.e. it infringes least on the name space
on systems with limited filename length) and the easiest to type.

There is no need for a new naming convention for header files, actually.
Assuming sane programmers, C++ programs will contain only #includes
referring to C++ header files (or C++-compatible C header files) and C
programs will contain only #includes referring to C header files.  The
only place where there is a real conflict is in library header files, and
the obvious way to handle them is by using two distinct library directories.
Actually it might have been better to use a new naming convention so things
could be together in one directory, but it's a bit late for that, as I
believe there are already conflicts (I'm a C++ novice and my copy of The
Book isn't handy, but I seem to recall stdio.h and some others).  If a
new convention were necessary, it should be analogous to the source-file
convention (e.g. .hh if the sources are .cc).
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry