[vbox-dev] reserved identifier violation

[Markus Elfring]

Knut St. Osmundsen wrote:
> Let me start saying that we're actively trying to avoid clashes with  
> the C and C++ namespaces. We're aware that the current code contains  
> violations, __BEGIN_DECLS being a prominent example, but they will be  
> corrected before too long I hope.

Thanks for this acknowledgement.

Would you like to reopen the corresponding bug report?
http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/3304

Will any software developer or code reviewer be assigned to the issue in the
near future?


> The reason why we used it in the first place is that, as  
> mentioned earlier, some team members have a history from C/C++/Unix  
> runtime development and found sys/cdefs.h and its __BEGIN_DECLS (from  
> *BSD) to be a useful replacement for the three line #ifdef __cplusplus 
> \n extern "C" {\n #endif block.

Should other software projects look also closer to their applications of naming
conventions?


>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Include_guard#Difficulties
> 
> We use ___[DIR_]FOO_H, not __FOO_H. That's miscommunication from our side.
> We do not see this as an invasion of the compiler / system namespace.

Well, it seems to be hard to distinguish three leading underscores from two.   ;-)
How do you think about to move them from the beginning of the symbols to the end
or to add a suffix "_INCLUDED"?
Would you like to extend the mentioned ban for this use case instead?


> Hope this was readable and helpful.

I thank you very much for your detailed clarification.

Regards,
Markus