Re: safer way to use gnulib

[Jaroslav Hajek]

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 8:44 PM, John W. Eaton <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 20-Feb-2010, Jaroslav Hajek wrote:
>
> | What do you think? It seems that in the current state of affairs
> | gnulib actually makes Octave less portable than before.
>
> Please see the following thread on the gnulib mailing list:
>
>  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2010-02/msg00113.html
>
> The last method proposed in that thread would allow us to use gnulib
> without having to modify Octave, and it would avoid the problems we
> have with the rpl_ definitions.  But as Bruno Haible points out, it
> may not be safe to include system headers inside a C++ namespace.  If
> not, then we can still avoid most of the trouble with the rpl_
> definitions, but we will have to prefix our uses of system functions
> with a namespace tag like gnulib:: (or posix::).
>
> Anyway, please read the thread and then we can discuss what options we
> have for fixing the problems we've been seeing.
>
> jwe
>

I think Bruno said it exactly:
"Your example [...] clearly indicates that in C++, one should minimize
the use of
preprocessor defines for lowercase identifiers. C++ has its own,
idiosyncratic, ways of aliasing and overriding functions."

This is precisely what has been giving us trouble. If gnulib can be
modified to be more C++-friendly, that will of course be a far better
solution than my suggestion.

-- 
RNDr. Jaroslav Hajek, PhD
computing expert & GNU Octave developer
Aeronautical Research and Test Institute (VZLU)
Prague, Czech Republic
url: www.highegg.matfyz.cz