On 21 January 2013 15:17, Tim Prince wrote: > On 1/20/2013 10:47 PM, horseriver wrote: >> >> >> what is the use of extern c within a declaration? >> >> >> > extern "C" basically shuts off C++ symbol mangling (and facilities which > depend on it), so as to facilitate linking with C and with languages such as > Fortran which support C interoperability. And says to use C calling conventions, because there's no guarantee C++ uses the same ones (though with GCC it does.) > The definition seems rather > loose; we frequently see reference operators used even though their > compatibility with C is doubtful. That's perfectly well-defined. A C program would be able to link to such a function and e.g. take its address. It just won't be able to call it (correctly) because it can't pass it a reference.
