This is an unofficial snapshot of the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG21 Core Issues List revision 113d. See http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/ for the official list.

2024-03-20


563. Linkage specification for objects

Section: 9.11  [dcl.link]     Status: CD6     Submitter: Daveed Vandevoorde     Date: 8 March 2006

[Accepted at the November, 2020 meeting as part of paper P1787R6 and moved to DR at the February, 2021 meeting.]

It is not clear whether some of the wording in 9.11 [dcl.link] that applies only to function types and names ought also to apply to object names. In particular, paragraph 3 says,

Every implementation shall provide for linkage to functions written in the C programming language, "C", and linkage to C++ functions, "C++".

Nothing is said about variable names, apparently meaning that implementations need not provide C (or even C++!) linkage for variable names. Also, paragraph 5 says,

Except for functions with C++ linkage, a function declaration without a linkage specification shall not precede the first linkage specification for that function. A function can be declared without a linkage specification after an explicit linkage specification has been seen; the linkage explicitly specified in the earlier declaration is not affected by such a function declaration.

There doesn't seem to be a good reason for these provisions not to apply to variable names, as well.