Using C functions in a C++ program

[ruffiano]

A colleague of mine who is a C developer wrote several functions in C
which I now need to invoke in my C++ application. This is normally not
a problem except that the header file that he wrote contains also
several structures and #defines, which I need to use in my C++
application.

What is the best way to use the C functions, structures and defines in
my code without upsetting the compiler / linker?

For the C functions I know I need to use extern "C" { ...}. But how do
I get to include the structures and the defines? If I include the
header file in my C++ code, then the linker will fail.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Pete Becker]

Greg Comeau wrote:

In article <4l************ @individual.net >,
Ian Collins <ia******@hotma il.comwrote:

>>ruffiano wrote:

>>>>Better off just putting extern "C" round the inclusion of the header,

Hello Ian, I apologize in advance if I misunderstood you, but are you
basically suggesting writing the following:

extern "C"
{
#include "CHeader.h"
}

Yes.

IME, that forms should be avoided at almost all costs.
"funny things" start happening with typedef's, nested headers
and with compilers.

And the standard explicitly prohibits including standard headers inside
any extern declaration, which in turn means that this isn't allowed if
CHeader.h uses any standard headers.

[ruffiano]

ra************@ yahoo.co.in wrote:

ruffiano,
refer this link,

http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/c...es/mixing.html

hope it will be helpful,

--
Raxit Sheth

Thanks for this article, which specifically addresses the problem I'm
dealing with. I also appreciate all the other suggestions. In the end,
I edited the header file as follows:

#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif
.... /* body of header */
#ifdef __cplusplus
} /* closing brace for extern "C" */
#endif

P.S.: Is this the correct way to reply inline?