Style question: #include

[Francine.Neary]

I have a program that uses a large lookup table, provided as a large
array in the source:

static int bigtbl[]={123, 456,
/* etc. etc. */
9999 };

Now this table is pretty big, and having it clutter up my main source
file is quite ugly. So I'd like to put it in a separate file and
#include that.

The style question is: should the separate file have a .c or .h
extension? There are two conventions, and I need to violate one of
them!
1) #including a .c file is weird.
2) putting a definition, rather than just declarations, in a .h file
is also weird.

Thoughts?

[Old Wolf]

On Jul 6, 3:51 pm, Francine.Ne...@ googlemail.com wrote:

I have a program that uses a large lookup table, provided as a
large array in the source:

static int bigtbl[]={123, 456,
/* etc. etc. */
9999 };

1) #including a .c file is weird.

Not really, that would be my preferred solution here.

Also, you could help the compiler out by declaring
the array as const (assuming it is in fact meant
to not change).

[pete]

Old Wolf wrote:

>
On Jul 6, 3:51 pm, Francine.Ne...@ googlemail.com wrote:

I have a program that uses a large lookup table, provided as a
large array in the source:

static int bigtbl[]={123, 456,
/* etc. etc. */
9999 };

1) #including a .c file is weird.

Not really, that would be my preferred solution here.

Also, you could help the compiler out by declaring
the array as const (assuming it is in fact meant
to not change).

I would remove the static,
and declare the array as extern in a.h,
and include "a.h" in main.c
and have int bigtbl in a.c.

--
pete

[Old Wolf]

On Jul 9, 9:49 pm, pete <pfil...@mindsp ring.comwrote:

I would remove the static,
and declare the array as extern in a.h,
and include "a.h" in main.c
and have int bigtbl in a.c.

I like encapsulation -- if a data table is
only meant to be used in one place, then I
like it to be only visible in that one place,
and not externally visible.

[August Karlstrom]

Fr************@ googlemail.com skrev:

I have a program that uses a large lookup table, provided as a large
array in the source:

static int bigtbl[]={123, 456,
/* etc. etc. */
9999 };

Now this table is pretty big, and having it clutter up my main source
file is quite ugly. So I'd like to put it in a separate file and
#include that.

The style question is: should the separate file have a .c or .h
extension? There are two conventions, and I need to violate one of
them!
1) #including a .c file is weird.
2) putting a definition, rather than just declarations, in a .h file
is also weird.

Thoughts?

You could also read the data from a file.
August

[Manish Tomar]

You could take the table and put it in another c "table.c" file which
will be among the list of files that are compiled and linked. its
associated "table.h" will contain extern of the table which can be
included in other modules and used. What say?

[Francine.Neary]

On Jul 11, 6:17 pm, Manish Tomar <manish.to...@g mail.comwrote:

You could take the table...

Please quote context. I wrote:

I have a program that uses a large lookup table, provided as a large
array in the source:

static int bigtbl[]={123, 456,
/* etc. etc. */
9999 };

Now this table is pretty big, and having it clutter up my main source
file is quite ugly. So I'd like to put it in a separate file and
#include that.

The style question is: should the separate file have a .c or .h
extension?

On Jul 11, 6:17 pm, Manish Tomar <manish.to...@g mail.comwrote:

You could take the table and put it in another c "table.c" file which
will be among the list of files that are compiled and linked.

Say yes - this is what I did, and with hindsight it seems fine to me.

its
associated "table.h" will contain extern of the table which can be
included in other modules and used. What say?

Say no way - violates encapsulation. (Did you miss the static?)

[Al Balmer]

On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 02:59:39 -0000, Fr************@ googlemail.com
wrote:

>On Jul 11, 6:17 pm, Manish Tomar <manish.to...@g mail.comwrote:

>You could take the table...

Please quote context. I wrote:

>I have a program that uses a large lookup table, provided as a large
array in the source:

static int bigtbl[]={123, 456,
/* etc. etc. */
9999 };

Now this table is pretty big, and having it clutter up my main source
file is quite ugly. So I'd like to put it in a separate file and
#include that.

The style question is: should the separate file have a .c or .h
extension?

On Jul 11, 6:17 pm, Manish Tomar <manish.to...@g mail.comwrote:

>You could take the table and put it in another c "table.c" file which
will be among the list of files that are compiled and linked.

Say yes - this is what I did, and with hindsight it seems fine to me.

>its
associated "table.h" will contain extern of the table which can be
included in other modules and used. What say?

Say no way - violates encapsulation. (Did you miss the static?)

If you're after encapsulation, then the access functions for the table
go in the same .c file, and the .h file contains their prototypes.

Including the table in files that use it doesn't provide any
encapsulation.

--
Al Balmer
Sun City, AZ

[Dave Hansen]

On Jul 12, 12:40 pm, Al Balmer <albal...@att.n etwrote:
[...]

>
Including the table in files that use it doesn't provide any
encapsulation.

However, defining the table static in the one and only file that uses
it does provide data hiding. Which is often conflated with
encapsulation.

Regards,

-=Dave