On Jan 7, 2013, at 5:28 PM, Jed Brown <jedbrown at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 3:29 PM, Matthew Knepley <knepley at gmail.com> wrote:
> The PetscOptions and PetscInfo functions are examples where we used _Private
> to
> indicate a lower level interface, rather than one that was truly file scope.
> I guess we
> need two different specifiers.
>
> Most of these are in matimpl.h and vecimpl.h. They should perhaps be called
> _Internal since they are shared inside PETSc, but not public. We should also
> change them from PETSC_EXTERN so that we can set visibility=hidden to prevent
> users from calling them through shared libraries. ;-)
I have no problem making them _Internal instead of _Private if that is
clearer. And making them not PETSC_EXTERN
>
> I don't have a problem with non-namespaced functions at file local scope,
I do have a problem with them, because I read code I haven't seen before
(that Jed or someone who copied Jed wrote) that looks like
PetscCoolClassAFunction(PetscSomething, ?.) {
?..
PetscStrcpy().
SomenameofSomething().
ISCreate?()
}
and I don't know if SomenameofSomething is private to this file or from
some other package. (note many other packages don't namespace so I cannot tell
if it is some other package). This interrupts the flow of the understanding of
the code so I need to restart (having to jump to somewhere else in the file to
see if SomenameofSomething() is in the file and a local utility. I would prefer
PetscCoolClassAFunction(PetscSomething, ?.) {
?..
PetscStrcpy().
PetscCoolClassSomething_Static().
ISCreate?()
}
now I immediately know it is a utility function associated with the
PetscCoolClass and it is also static (so private to the file). I can keep on
reading.
Just making up random names (no mater how local) is not good literate
programming :-)
So we are proposing utility functions in PETSc NOT for external users are
PetscClassFunction_Internal() and for static functions in a file are
PetscClassFunction_Static()?
Barry
Yes I realize the static is redundant with the declaration of the function but
I am not reading the declaration I am reading the use and don't want to
interupt the flow by jumping around.
> they just have to be renamed if they are ever referenced from elsewhere.
