On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 17:44:34 +0200, Joerg Sonnenberger
<joerg@britannica.bec.de> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 05:36:11PM +0200, Miguel Mendez wrote:
>> On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 16:11:17 +0100
>> Jonathon McKitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> > Sorry this is such a lame question, but I never quite figured out what
>> > 'static' does to a function declaration. Obviously for a variable, it
>> > allocates memory for the lifetime of the process rather than on the
>> stack just
>> > for one function call.
>
> Only for function scope variables.
>
>> > But what about 'static' for all the kernel functions
>> > that have no return value?
>>
>> static foo(blah blah) restricts the scope of the function to that
>> module, i.e. it's not visible outside that .c file. You usually do that
>> to keep private functions from being called from somewhere else. That
>> way other parts of the program will only talk to the published API.
>
> That's right. It's also what happens with file scope variables.
>
> Beside keeping the namespace cleans, it allows the compiler to choose
> a different ABI for internal functions. It also allows the compiler to
> warn about unused local functions and variables.
Then `static __inline' also makes big macro less attractive ;-)
>
> Joerg