Are nested functions a bad thing in gcc ?

c gcc closures nested-function
LB40 picture LB40 · May 28, 2010 · Viewed 10.1k times · Source

I know that nested functions are not part of the standard C, but since they're present in gcc (and the fact that gcc is the only compiler i care about), i tend to use them quite often.

Is this a bad thing ? If so, could you show me some nasty examples ? What's the status of nested functions in gcc ? Are they going to be removed ?

Answer

anon picture anon · May 28, 2010

Nested functions really don't do anything that you can't do with non-nested ones (which is why neither C nor C++ provide them). You say you are not interested in other compilers - well this may be atrue at this moment, but who knows what the future will bring? I would avoid them, along with all other GCC "enhancements".

A small story to illustrate this - I used to work for a UK Polytechinc which mostly used DEC boxes - specifically a DEC-10 and some VAXen. All the engineering faculty used the many DEC extensions to FORTRAN in their code - they were certain that we would remain a DEC shop forever. And then we replaced the DEC-10 with an IBM mainframe, the FORTRAN compiler of which didn't support any of the extensions. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth on that day, I can tell you. My own FORTRAN code (an 8080 simulator) ported over to the IBM in a couple of hours (almost all taken up with learning how to drive the IBM compiler), because I had written it in bog-standard FORTRAN-77.

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