Reserved names in C++ [Was: Re: mingw __dllexport__]

[Roberto Bagnara]

Kevin Ryde wrote:
> I guess in the libgmpxx routines we've ended up with __mpz_struct
> getting into the mangling, where __gmpz_struct might have been better.
> Alas doing anything about that would break binary compatibility.

In my humble opinion, there is no issue of binary compatibility
today, as far as libgmpxx is concerned (no C++ compiler/version
has been binary compatible with any other, no distribution I know
of has shipped precompiled versions of libgmpxx and so forth).
That is why I believe the very right thing should be done today
in order to be able to guarantee binary compatibility tomorrow,
when it will be an issue.  In other words, I believe the C++
standard should be followed to the last bit so as to decrease
the probability binary compatibility has to be broken later.
Just my opinion, of course.

-- 
Prof. Roberto Bagnara
Computer Science Group
Department of Mathematics, University of Parma, Italy
http://www.cs.unipr.it/~bagnara/
mailto:bagnara@cs.unipr.it