"Numerical Recipes in C" is nonport

[will summers]

 In article <3981 at bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi at bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
 > In article <8507 at smoke.ARPA> gwyn at brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
 > writes:
 > >C extern names are not necessarily unique beyond 6 characters,...
 > I think Doug Gwyn exaggerates in saying "many" and "of necessity".
 
I hate this restriction (big deal! **everybody hates this**, even the 
committee!)
 
So what to do?
 
Liberally paraphrasing the Rationale:
 dpANS work-around 2:
   Use defines:
       #define real_long_name   a_xyz_real_long_name
       #define real_long_name2  a_rwt_real_long_name2
 
 dpANS work-around 3:
   Use longer names and kiss portability to short-extern environments goodby.
 
What to do?
 
Well dpANS *permits* the implementor to honor as much significance as he 
wishes. In practice an implementor affected by market forces will honor as 
many characters as his environment permits.
 
So I choose (3), and will add #defines al'a (2) if I ever need to port to a 
short-extern environment.
 
I think so many programmers in longer-extern environments will do the same 
that those importing to short-extern environments will encounter the problem 
often enough to develop tools to generate the #defines automatically.
 
    \/\/ill


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