From: Nate Eldredge <neldredge AT hmc DOT edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: #ifdef __cplusplus
Date: 17 Oct 2000 14:19:49 -0700
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"Kurt Aistinger" <kurt DOT aistinger AT chello DOT at> writes:

> Hi!
> I recently read through the stdio.h and discovered following lines:
> at the beginning it says:
>             #ifdef __cplusplus
>                 extern "C" {
>             #endif
> and at the end:
>             #ifdef __cplusplus
>                 }
>             #endif
> Could anyone explain to me what this is good for?

This is so stdio.h can be used by either C or C++ programs.  In a C++
program, declarations of functions written in C (like those in
stdio.h) need to be enclosed in `extern "C" { }'.  So these lines have
the effect of enclosing the entire header in those braces when the C++
compiler is in use.

-- 

Nate Eldredge
neldredge AT hmc DOT edu