.hpp

[karthikbalaguru]

Hi,

I have never used .hpp for header file. I came across '.hpp' in a
certain set of code.
I searched the net, but it has been stated that we can use
either .h/.hpp for header files.
Is there any reason behind using '.hpp' ?
What could be the advantage of using '.hpp' extension over '.h'
extension ?

Thx,
Karthik Balaguru

[Ian Collins]

karthikbalaguru wrote:

Hi,

I have never used .hpp for header file. I came across '.hpp' in a
certain set of code.
I searched the net, but it has been stated that we can use
either .h/.hpp for header files.

You can use what ever you like...

Is there any reason behind using '.hpp' ?
What could be the advantage of using '.hpp' extension over '.h'
extension ?

Possibly to differentiate C++ headers from C ones.

--
Ian Collins.

[Jim Langston]

"karthikbalaguru" <ka***************@gmail.comwrote in message
news:11**********************@22g2000hsm.googlegro ups.com...

Hi,

I have never used .hpp for header file. I came across '.hpp' in a
certain set of code.
I searched the net, but it has been stated that we can use
either .h/.hpp for header files.
Is there any reason behind using '.hpp' ?
What could be the advantage of using '.hpp' extension over '.h'
extension ?

You can name a header file anything you like. MyFile.blah is just as
"legal" as MyFile.h or MyFile.hpp Even MyFile. with no extention is legal
(such as #include <stringwhich is string. no extention. Some
compilers/people may prefer to give c++ header files a .hpp extention to
differentiate them beteeen C headers. Some IDEs and such may not recognize
any type other than .h or .hpp but the include statement will still be
executed correctly.

[Saeed Amrollahi]

On Sep 18, 11:33 am, karthikbalaguru <[e-mail]>
wrote:

Hi,

I have never used .hpp for header file. I came across '.hpp' in a
certain set of code.
I searched the net, but it has been stated that we can use
either .h/.hpp for header files.
Is there any reason behind using '.hpp' ?
What could be the advantage of using '.hpp' extension over '.h'
extension ?

Thx,
Karthik Balaguru

Hi Karthik
The use of differnet extensions for header file and even source file
is dependent to implementation and programming environment. For
example in Visual C++ and .NET environemts the convention is .h for
headers and .cpp for sources. In older versions of UNIX environment,
compilers used .C (capital c) or .CC for sources and .h for headers.
Newer compilers like GCC supports vast extensions
like .h, .hpp, .C, .CXX (it is + with 45 degrees rotation), .C++. I
personally use (.h/.C++).
And finally, I think from point of Standard C++ view, there is no
advantage using one extension over another one.

Regards,
Saeed

[Juha Nieminen]

karthikbalaguru wrote:

What could be the advantage of using '.hpp' extension over '.h'
extension ?

If you see a file with the extension '.h' you can't know if it's a
C header or a C++ header without looking at its contents (and even then
it might not be immediately obvious). You obviously can't use a C++
header in a C program, although in a few cases the opposite is true too.

More importantly, editor programs which support, for example, syntax
highlighting cannot know if it's a C or a C++ file without complex
deductions from the file contents. I assume that most such editors
simply always assume that it's one or the other, getting it wrong
sometimes, thus giving you wrong syntax highlighting.

Why use a confusing naming convention when you can use a clearer one?
What would be the advantage of using '.h' for C++ headers, given that
they can be easily confused with C headers?

[Rui Maciel]

karthikbalaguru wrote:

I have never used .hpp for header file. I came across '.hpp' in a
certain set of code.
I searched the net, but it has been stated that we can use
either .h/.hpp for header files.
Is there any reason behind using '.hpp' ?

It's the exact same reason why the C++ source files frequently sport
the ".cpp" extension.

What could be the advantage of using '.hpp' extension over '.h'
extension ?

I've used those extensions, along with ".c++" and ".h++". I've also seen
projects which adopted the ".cxx" and ".hxx" extensions.

To me, the single advantage is that just by looking at the file name it is
automatically possible to know that the code it contains is C or C++. That
is particularly useful if a project handles both C and C++ modules.

On the other hand, there are quite a few artificial disadvantages. There are
quite a few IDEs and other software that, although were written to handle
C++ programming, do not accept anything beyond the popular ".h" and ".cpp"
extensions or even breaking miserably if they stumble on some other
extension.
Rui Maciel

[Pete Becker]

On 2007-09-19 04:50:15 -0400, James Kanze <ja*********@gmail.comsaid:

>
The problem is precisely that the convention (established by the
creator of the language) was .C. When different people ported
to systems which didn't have case sensitive filenames, they had
to create a new convention. The most common to begin with seem
to have been .cc and .cxx, but Microsoft (and maybe Borland
before them) adopted .cpp, so that rapidly became the most
common under Windows. All three are acceptable to all modern
compilers I know.

Yes, Borland used .cpp. That's where Microsoft got it from.

--
Pete
Roundhouse Consulting, Ltd. (www.versatilecoding.com) Author of "The
Standard C++ Library Extensions: a Tutorial and Reference
(www.petebecker.com/tr1book)