When C Clashes with C++.

[ih8censorship]

Tonight i ran into an interesting issue. The naming convention i have been using, clashed with the name of a function from a C header that i wanted to use within a member function. So to fix it, I put the header in a namespace so i could call the right function. Heres a little code for illustration purposes:

Code

GeSHi (cpp):
namespace meh
{
#include <windows.h>
}
 
 
class foo
{
    public:
        void MessageBox();
 
};
 
 
void foo::MessageBox()
{
  meh::MessageBox(0,"hi","hello",0);
} 
 
int main()
{
 foo bar;
 bar.MessageBox();
 return 0;
}
Created by GeSHI 1.0.7.18

if anyone cares, the actual function that clashed with my method name was the write function from unistd.h . Thoughts? Right? Wrong? Smart or dumb?

[adeyblue]

The scope resolution operator ( :: ). If you've got a member function called write and you want to call the global one, it should disambiguate the two. This compiles fine.

Code

GeSHi (cpp):
#include <windows.h>
#include <iostream>
 
class Test
{
public:
    void WriteFile()
    {
        DWORD d;
        char a = 'h';
        ::WriteFile(NULL, &a, 1, &d, NULL);
    }
};
 
int main()
{
    Test t;
    t.WriteFile();
}
 
Created by GeSHI 1.0.7.18

I'm sure you know, but to anybody else it's a good idea not to have functions or classes with the same names as windows functions, since most of them are defined as macros which will bring in seemingly strange errors.

Code

GeSHi (cpp):
// example.cpp
class Example
{
public:
    void MessageBox();
};
 
#include <windows.h>
 
int doMsgBox()
{
    Example a;
    a.MessageBox(); // error, MessageBoxA/MessageBoxW is not a member of Example
}
 
Created by GeSHI 1.0.7.18

[ih8censorship]

Wow i just learned something  I didn't know you could use the scope resolution operator like that to get to the global scope again. Cool!

[adeyblue]

You've not seen much MFC code have you

[ih8censorship]

Hm... I've seen enough of it to stay away from it