Is #pragma once a safe include guard?

Question

I\'ve read that there is some compiler optimization when using #pragma once which can result in faster compilation. I recognize that is non-standard, and thus

Answer 1

GCC supports #pragma once since 3.4, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragma_once for further compiler support.

The big upside I see on using #pragma once as opposed to include guards is to avoid copy/paste errors.

Let's face it: most of us hardly start a new header file from scratch, but rather just copy an existing one and modify it to our needs. It is much easier to create a working template using #pragma once instead of include guards. The less I have to modify the template, the less I am likely to run into errors. Having the same include guard in different files leads to strange compiler errors and it takes some time to figure out what went wrong.

TL;DR: #pragma once is easier to use.