jpl@allegra.UUCP (John P. Linderman) (01/18/84)
A cry for help just went up in net.bugs-4bsd because an include file relied on definitions in another file which didn't get included. If I got a dime from everyone on the net who has been burned by including a file in /usr/include/sys that needs (but fails to include) <sys/types.h>, I could retire now. If every include file foo.h was of the form #ifndef fooX #define fooX ... former contents of foo.h #endif fooX then files could be included several times without redefining everything. Include files that rely on other include files could (and SHOULD) go ahead and include those files, and if they get included elsewhere as well, all we have lost is some compile time efficiency. Many of us have been doing this with our own include files for years. Now if we could just convince the owners of /usr/include to do the same, we could spend our time doing productive work instead of grepping through include files. John P. Linderman Department of Excluded Includes allegra!jpl