A question on C programming style

[cschmidt at lynx.northeastern.edu]

> How do the guru's on the net feel about the following two styles?
>
> [two examples, one of which uses nested include directives]

My practice is to use nested include directives, but the technique I
employ requires some explanation.  This is a bit long, and I hope my
fellow C programmers will find it of interest.

Rather than writing header files directly, I write only .C files, then
use a program I wrote that generates header files.  This has several
advantages, some of which have to do with include directives.

The header generator program writes directives that prevent the
compiler from including or interpreting a header file more than once
when processing a single source file.

o   The program adds three lines to each output header file, enclosing
    the entire file in an "if" statement.  This prevents the compiler
    from interpreting the same header file more than once.  Example:

        #ifndef STDIO_H
        #define STDIO_H
        ...
        #endif

o   Every include directive written to the output header file is
    enclosed in an "if" statement.  This prevents the compiler from
    including the same header file more than once.  Example:

        #ifndef STDIO_H
        #include <stdio.h>
        #endif

Here is an important advantage of using this technique.  A source
file needs to include only the headers for modules that define things
the source file uses directly.  In other words, it is never necessary
to include a header only to declare things required for the compiler
to correctly interpret a header included subsequently.

For example, if module A requires module B, and module B requires
module C, then the module A source file only includes the B header
explicitly.  If the module B requirements are later modified, no
changes to the modules that require B will be necessary.  When you
write module A, you do not need to know what module B requires.  If
module A happens to include header C before including header B, the
conditional statements shown above prevent the compiler from opening
header C twice.

The header generator program encourages you to divide the input source
file into two sections.  (Actually, there are four section types in
all, but this is enough complication for this message.)

o   Export section.  This section contains the things that are copied
    to the output header file, such as include directives and other
    declarations for all other modules that use this module.  A
    certain pragma directive marks the end of the export section.

o   Implementation section.  This section contains the definitions (as
    opposed to the declarations) of exported variables and functions,
    and it may define non-exported constants, types, variables, and
    functions, and it may contain include directives that are required
    only for the implementation section.

The header generator program takes an input file specification
argument, which may include wildcards.  For each specified source
file, the program generates a header file only if there does not
already exist a header file with a newer time stamp.

An additional advantage: The compiler runs perceptably faster because
the header files are compressed and because fewer header files are
accessed.  Note that a module does not include its own header file.
Header file compression consists of removing all comments and blank
lines, and replacing consecutive spaces and tabs with a single space.

I would like to know what you all think about this.

Christopher Schmidt
cschmidt at lynx.northeastern.edu