Namespaces and shared libraries

[Andy Lomax]

I'm converting a library I've written so that all my code is in
namespace 'foo' (previously all my external symbols had a 'foo_'
prefix; I'm new to C++).

Question: my source files now have a 'using namespace foo' in them,
and I refer to all my library classes/methods/etc without a 'foo::'
qualifier. Is this a good idea? If I access my own ("private" to
myself) class 'bar' in the library, and I distribute the code as a
shared lib, will the loader get confused if it finds a user 'bar'?

Actually, the more I think about this, the more complex it gets.
Anyone know of a good reference for using namespaces with libraries?

Cheers

AL

[Kristo]

Andy Lomax wrote:

I'm converting a library I've written so that all my code is in
namespace 'foo' (previously all my external symbols had a 'foo_'
prefix; I'm new to C++).

Question: my source files now have a 'using namespace foo' in them,
and I refer to all my library classes/methods/etc without a 'foo::'
qualifier. Is this a good idea? If I access my own ("private" to
myself) class 'bar' in the library, and I distribute the code as a
shared lib, will the loader get confused if it finds a user 'bar'?

Actually, the more I think about this, the more complex it gets.
Anyone know of a good reference for using namespaces with libraries?

There's a recent addition to the FAQ that covers this issue quite
nicely. You can apply the same rules for your namespace foo as you can
for namespace std. See FAQ section 27.5.

Kristo