`Hiding' libc symbols

[Jacques A. Vidrine]

On Tue, May 06, 2003 at 09:42:04AM -0600, Ben Mesander wrote:
> In addition to ports which override libc functions like printf() for
> ease of porting, there are important ports, such as the Boehm garbage
> collector for C/C++ or electric fence, which _depend_ upon the ability
> to override libc functions such as malloc() and free().
> 
> Whatever decision is eventually made must allow such ports to
> function.
> 
> This has been brought up once before, but I do not see how any of the
> advocates for change have addressed it.

Probably because there is not much to address.  I think it is
universally agreed that the allocator is likely to need to be
overridden.  There are at least two solutions:

  (a) Treat malloc & company as an exception: always call them by
      their un-adorned name from within libc.

  (b) Let these specialized applications override the adorned names
      instead.  There is probably already code within these ports to
      deal with underscore-prefixed names.

I don't really have a preference for either solution.

Cheers,
-- 
Jacques Vidrine   . NTT/Verio SME      . FreeBSD UNIX       . Heimdal
nectar at celabo.org . jvidrine at verio.net . nectar at freebsd.org . nectar at kth.se