On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Dan Sugalski wrote:
> *) All exported perl functions and functionlike things have a Perl_ prefix
> *) All exported data and dataish thigns have a PL_ prefix
> *) All private routines have #defines to give them a _Perl_ prefix
> *) All private data have #defines to give them a _PL_ prefix
> *) Internal data and functions get referenced via the unqualified names
> That way the internals can use the utility function str_to_UTF(), while the
> world would see it (or, rather, not see it) as _Perl_str_to_UTF().
But think also about embedding applications. If you want to embed perl
into another program that has its own str_to_UTF() function, then
#include "myprogram.h"
#include <perl.h>
/* ... */
str_to_UTF();
may get inadvertantly stuck with _Perl_str_to_UTF().
Offhand, I see at least three possible approaches:
1. Don't ever have short names. (Yuck, lots of typing, but that's
ultimately how we got in the perl5 state).
2. Don't have the #defines #included by <perl.h> by default (or have
them only set #ifdef PERL_CORE or some such).
3. Provide an unembed.h that un-does all those defines
#include "myprogram.h"
#include <perl.h>
#include <perl/unembed.h>
Of course _that_ could still collide with a #define for str_to_UTF() in
myprogram.h, though this is starting to get less likely.
--
Andy Dougherty [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dept. of Physics
Lafayette College, Easton PA 18042
