[Mpi-forum] Reserved MPI_ prefix & namespace in C and Fortran

[Rolf Rabenseifner]

> So the current wording is fine.
Okay, I do not change the erratum.


----- Original Message -----
> From: "N.M. Maclaren" <nmm1 at cam.ac.uk>
> To: "Main MPI Forum mailing list" <mpi-forum at lists.mpi-forum.org>
> Sent: Monday, August 27, 2012 9:29:18 AM
> Subject: Re: [Mpi-forum] Reserved MPI_ prefix & namespace in C and Fortran
> On Aug 26 2012, Jeremiah Willcock wrote:
> >
> >Does "linker names" come under any of the categories so far? I know that
> >some of the C compiler extensions to set linker names explicitly do not
> >treat them as identifiers in the source code. Are those worth adding
> >explicitly (to all languages, probably)?
> 
> The technical term in both C and Fortran is "external names", and
> Fortran 2003 BIND(C,NAME=...) sets ones that are not identifiers. 
> So the current wording is fine.
> 
> Just to be really nasty, many systems did/do have the concept of "linker
> names" that are beyond any name concept in any of the languages they
> support and, despite that, they can clash. But there is no reasonable
> way to say "An MPI implementation must avoid provoking its linker into
> creating artificial names beginning MPI_". This has arisen in various
> language standards, and the universal decision was to keep the
> standard's wording simple - even C never got into this one, though it 
> was raised!
> 
> Regards,
> Nick Maclaren.

-- 
Dr. Rolf Rabenseifner . . . . . . . . . .. email rabenseifner at hlrs.de
High Performance Computing Center (HLRS) . phone ++49(0)711/685-65530
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