Re: Question--EXTERN: good or bad (or neutral)?

[Elena Zannoni <ezannoni at cygnus dot com>]

Kevin Buettner writes:
 > On Aug 1,  6:45pm, Elena Zannoni wrote:
 > 
 > > How do people feel about this thing in buildsym.h?

 > > Is there any reason for not moving the definitions into the .c files?
 > 
 > If you *really* need lots of global variables, the EXTERN trickery
 > could be a good thing because it could make maintenance easier.  I.e,
 > when you want to change one of the types, it would only need to be
 > changed in one spot and you don't have diverging comments, etc.
 > 
 > However, I think we're taking the viewpoint these days that macro
 > trickery like the above is bad style.  In addition, we shouldn't be
 > defining that many global variables anyway.  In fact, we *should* be
 > attempting to eliminate as many of these globals as we can.  So, I see
 > nothing wrong with making these globals more painful to use and
 > maintain.  That way, when one of us wants to change one of these,
 > perhaps we'll take a look at the code and find a way to do the same
 > job without the global.

Yes, I haven't actually even looked at how many of these globals need
to be exported. Maybe it is the case that only a few are actually
necessary in the .h file. 

 > 
 > (So, yes, I think moving the definitions into a .c file is a good idea.)
 > 

Yeah. Lots of low hanging fruits in those files.


 > Kevin

Elena