Safe C Guidelines II: Header FilesI find the way of structuring modules and header files detailed here an important part of writing safe C. You can read more Safe C Guidelines here One header file per module Split the project up into modules, each module has a header file that declares its functions that can be called from other modules, and its variables that are accessible globally. There is only one file that contains these declarations and is included wherever this module may be used. I prefix the variable name with the name of the module. This prevents variable name clashes. The header file contains entries like extern uint8_t encoder_size; extern void encoder_encode(uint8_t *data, uint8_t type); In the file encoder.c, the top of the file will contain definitions of all variables. This is where memory for these variables is allocated. Variables that are only visible within the file will be defined with static and may not contain the module prefix encoder_. unint8_t encoder_size;
uint32_t number_of_encode_calls;
void simple_encode(uint8_t *data){
.....
}
void complex_encode(uint8_t *data){
...
}
void encoder_encode(uint8_t *data, uint8_t type){
number_of_encode_calls++;
if( 1 == type){
simple_encode(data);
} else {
complex_encode(data);
}
}
In function definitions in header files leave the name of variables In function definitions in header files, leave the name of variables in there. If you have chosen descriptive variable names, as you should, it provides more hint to other programmers and you (when you come back to the code a year later), as to what the function does. Always declare size of arrays C allows arrays to be linked against without specifying their size. However declaring the size of the array is helpful to people writing code. So use uint8_t data[100]; instead of uint8_t data[]; Need More Help? Have An Opinion?
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