On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 19:25:04 -0500, "Hartmut Kaiser" <hartmut.kaiser@gmail.com> wrote:
But what is the benefit? I think that's the key question. If they don't have any they are just misleading. I'd say there are very few exceptions to this (in truth the only one which comes to mind is the nifty counter idiom).
It's just an easy way to move a helper function 'out of the way'. But as always it's a matter of taste and personal style so I'm not going to argue with you :-P
Why not :-P Not sure what do you mean by 'out of the way' here. The whole unnamed namespace is still subject to an implicit using declaration: namespace { void my_helper(); } behaves the same as namespace name_unique_to_the_translation_unit {} using name_unique_to_the_translation_unit; namespace name_unique_to_the_translation_unit { void my_helper(); } Thus: // a.hpp // namespace wave { namespace { void my_helper(); } } // a.cpp // #include "a.hpp" namespace wave { int my_helper(); void f() { my_helper(); // oops! } } Comparing this with the version without unnamed namespace it seems to me it only allows the error to go undetected longer (i.e. until you attempt the function call)
The mentioned problems are fixed now.
Thanks, but please only fix things if you are convinced that they need to be fixed. There's no authority here :-) -- [ Gennaro Prota, C++ developer for hire ]