🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <u9g2g5xbre.fsf@yorick.cygnus.com> jason@cygnus.com (Jason Merrill) writes:

    >> What behavior does the draft standard condone for the following
    >> scenario:

    >> 1) In a header file, an inline function is defined to contain a
    >> local static, like so:

    >> 2) Two seperate modules include this header file, call them A
    >> and B.  A "initializes" foo():

    >> 3) B calls foo(), dereferences the pointer returned and prints
    >> its value:

    >> Some data points:

    >> MSVC++: *foo() = 1 G++: *foo() = 0 Sun C++:*foo() = 0

    >> My intuition is that MSVC++ is doing the "right" thing (gasp),
    >> and what "should" be the standard thing.

    Jason>    G++ and Sun conform to the current working paper for
    Jason> this example.  If foo had been explicitly declared 'extern
    Jason> inline', or if it were a member function, MS would be
    Jason> correct.

Thanks for the clarification!  I wonder, though, if this isn't
something of a gratuitious inconsistancy.  For all other function
definitions, extern is the default-- you have to use the static
keyword to restrict the definition to file scope.  Now the draft is
saying that inline functions get exactly the *opposite* semantics
(ie. static is assumed, extern must be declared explicitly).

The only reason I can fathom for this is for compatibility with
existing, pre-standard C++ code-- and I'd say that's a pretty weak
basis given my intuition that this usage in existing implementations
should be pretty rare.  Am I just missing something?
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