3550. Names reserved by C for standard library not reserved by C++

Section: 16.4.5.3 [reserved.names] Status: New Submitter: Hubert Tong Opened: 2021-05-10 Last modified: 2021-05-20

Priority: 3

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Discussion:

The C standard has a section called "Future library directions". This is subclause 7.31 in C17, which is the version that the C++ working draft references. C reserves the names described in that subclause for its standard library, allowing C library vendors to introduce some names from future standards as conforming, "orthogonal" extensions. ISO C++ does not appear to reserve these names in a clear way. In particular, 16.4.5.3 [reserved.names] has wording about names and function signatures "from the C standard library declared with external linkage", but C's "Future library directions" describes names that "may be added to the declarations in [some] header[s]".

Extra clarity regarding whether these names are actually intended to be reserved by C++ would be appreciated.

[2021-05-20; Reflector poll]

Priority set to 3.

Proposed resolution: