A question on C programming style

[Blair P. Houghton]

In article <memo.928070 at lynx.northeastern.edu> cschmidt at lynx.northeastern.edu writes:

Sounds like a great idea, but...

>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.)

Ick.  Constraints on source layout are often much
more trouble than they're worth.

Can you make it smart enough to simply create correct
external declarations in the .h from all things defined in
the .c (all things with external linkage, that is)?  Plus
all #defines?  Generally programmers put definitions of
objects in the region of the file preceding the first
function definiton.  Sometimes, however, it's useful to
keep certain constants and variables close to the function
that uses them, so one can cut and paste the function if
the entire package isn't needed.  It's not any harder to
find a variable definition in the middle of a file than at
the beginning, especially when the file defines several
hundred variables.

I can see how it would be a couple of orders of magnitude
easier to do it with an explicit dividing line between
objects and functions, though.

You didn't mention it, but the .h file should also contain the
prototypes of the functions in the .c file, of course...

				--Blair
				  "I laughed, I cried,
				   I compiled my popcorn..."