Hi Branden, On Mon, Feb 17, 2025 at 04:35:37PM -0600, G. Branden Robinson wrote: > At 2025-02-17T23:16:59+0100, Alejandro Colomar wrote: > > On Mon, Feb 17, 2025 at 09:24:11PM +0100, Günther Noack wrote: > > > > +Name > > > > + style/c - C coding style > > > > > > "...for code examples in man pages"? > > > > I didn't specify, because it also applies to programs written in commit > > messages (for example to prove that a patch is correct). It applies to > > every C program that I have to look at as maintainer of this project > > (and actually, of any project that I comaintain too). > > Maybe you need a name for this class/category. > > "Colomar C coding style guide"? Well, I guess being a file within our repository makes it explicit enough that it applies at least to this project in its entirety. That is also applies to my other things, is coincidence. :) I'll avoid giving it a name, for now. > > The definitions go all after main(). The prototypes go all before > > main(). The benefit is that you can get an overview of what is > > defined without having to look at the implementation. > > My understanding is that function prototypes were added to the C > language to permit type-checking of function call arguments (and return > values) _across_ translation units--specifically. So if a function is > static, or has no callers outside of its translation unit,[1] the > compiler can be expected to exercise whatever type-checking facilities > it has within that translation unit. (I admit not knowing whether the > pre-ANSI Ritchie compiler or pcc were this careful. I'll brace myself.) Yep, their main reason to exist is type safety across TUs. However, that is useless in this project, because example programs are a single TU most of the time. However, they're still useful as an "index" of the program source code. You can have a look at the list of prototypes, and that gives you an idea of what is implemented below. > > Regards, > Branden > > [1] ...in which case the correct thing to do is _declare it static_, but > hey, this is C, man, we're "terse". More modern languages like Go > and Rust have started to recognize that having symbols be public > and/or mutable by default are worse choices for modularity and > concurrency. Even Ada was not quite this careful. Even for functions internal to a TU, I do always provide prototypes for them in my code. It helps see what's in a .c file by looking at the "index" at the top. Have a lovely night! Alex -- <https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
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