问题
I am relatively new to Mixed C/C++ applications using the gcc and g++ tools. To get the hand of it I have downloaded the iperf source code and built it with success using Eclipse.
There is one oddity: If I look into the file "Thread.c" using Eclipse it thinks there is a syntax error and underlines almost the whole file as if the code is flawed, which it is absolutely not.
This is the piece of code that triggers it:
#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C"
{
#endif
I know what extern "C" is used for in C++ but Eclipse has problems with it when present in .c files. It happily accepts it in .cpp and .h files though.
I have checked out how the Make utility builds the iperf application and I see it always uses gcc to compile c files and g++ to compile cpp files which makes me wonder if extern "C" is actually required. It most definitely does not hurt because the gcc compiler happily deals with it but if it is not strictly required I could omit it and get better readability in Eclipse.
I have also looked at a possible solution for Eclipse's behaviour but have not really found one, if anybody can point out how to solve it that would be equally good.
回答1:
If you are using Eclipse, what you seeing in editor has to do with Eclipse internal indexer/parser. Your mixed C/C++ project may compile and build with no issues, but when you open a source file which has
#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif
you may see a syntax error marked on the extern "C" line. This means that "__cplusplus" symbol is defined for your C compiler in your project settings.
In order to get rid of that syntax error in the Eclipse editor, go to project Properties -> C/C++ General -> Paths and Symbols -> # Symbols tab, and select "GNU C" (or whatever C compiler you use) under "Languages" column. Scroll through Symbol/Value list on the right, find the "__cplusplus" symbol and delete it. Make sure you do that only for C compiler.
Click OK to close the project Properties window and the syntax error warning will be gone in Eclipse editor.
回答2:
that piece of code is normally found in headers, and should be always be written to header files that belong to c-files. (with the corresponding closing bracket at the end of the header)
reason is, that c uses a different scheme how the functions are internally called (--> name mangeling). while the compiler can distinguish a c++ code file from c code file by its extension it can not distinguish between a c-header and a c++ header that is included from a cpp file. so it does not know if it has to mangle the name of the declared functions or not (by default it does).
then the linker tries to match the used symbols (reference to function from cpp) with the created one (defined by the c-file) it does not find the symbol if the compiler was not told not to mangle the declaration.
回答3:
extern "C" is only legal in C++ and ensures that the specified function(s) have C linkage. This means that the function parameters are not mangled into the binary function name.
To ensure that the header file compiles in C we include the #ifdef __cplusplus __cplusplus is defined by a C++ compiler and not a C compiler. This use used to protect C code from the C++ only extern "C" directive.
IDE's so not use compilers for code intelligence and therefore may get things wrong.
回答4:
probably just a silly workaround for your issue. what i found is that, while using c functions in cpp file, theoretically extern is required. But i found that in eclipse oxygen version, we do not have to specify extern c, we can directly use c functions and printf statements too in cpp file and it just works fine. Havent tried in older versions of eclipse.
My solution may not be very helpful, but you could give it a try. It worked for me.
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23737599/is-extern-c-required-in-c-files-to-solve-odd-eclipse-behaviour