Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!necntc!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Reserved names in X3J11
Message-ID: <4195@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: 25 May 88 03:41:17 GMT
References: <7861@alice.UUCP> <7860@brl-smoke.ARPA> <7288@bellcore.bellcore.com> <4085@haddock.ISC.COM> <211@proxftl.UUCP>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 17

In article <211@proxftl.UUCP> bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes:
>Specifically, if you define a function whose name matches a
>function name in one of the more esoteric libraries and you do
>not use something from the same library, all of the C compilers
>that I am familiar with will not give you grief.

In such case, an ANSI compiler is also likely to silently do what you expect,
with the same level of guarantee: if you know enough about the internals to
know that it's safe, then it's safe.

>And my main complaint is not with the fact that names are reserved but with
>the fact that SO many of them are.

I agree that namespace pollution is a problem.  Fortunately, it seems that
the macro names are reserved only when the corresponding header is included.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint