Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Include files
Message-ID: <9542@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 31 Jan 89 07:43:37 GMT
References: <10991@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU> <9526@smoke.BRL.MIL> <10995@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 16

In article <10995@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU> raghavan@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Vijay Raghavan) writes:
-In article <9526@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>) writes:
-<The first point is that the standard headers may be included only
-<outside all function bodies (i.e. at file scope level).
-   May? Does this mean the same as "are required to"?

No, because you're not required to include the header at all (unless,
of course, you want to use something it declares or defines).  You
have official permission to include it ONLY at file scope level.
("may" as in "are allowed to")

-I *know* what the "#ifndef FILE" was attempting to accomplish. All I am
-saying is that the effect is not the same (as without the "#ifndef") when
-the inclusions occur in different mutually non-nesting blocks of the same file.

Thus the injunction against doing that.