Thread: Accessing global constants

Do you guys think it's a good idea to always use :: before global constants, even if it's not necessary? I like it because it makes it clear that you are using a global variable, and it prevents you from accidentally using a local variable instead by mistake. I've seen some people prefix global variables with g_, but then you might as well use :: in my opinion.

Then again, the same thing could be said for always using this-> to access member data, which a lot of people probably find to be quite ugly.

Originally Posted by brewbuck

Placing all global symbols in :: renders namespaces useless.

How is that? If you have a variable x in A then use A::x instead.

I'm not writing code that will used by anyone else, so I don't care about polluting the global namespace.

How exactly does it fail to make good use of namespaces then?

The only reason I could see for using namespaces in this particular case is if I'm linking against some poorly written library that is polluting the global namespace with commonly used names.

Originally Posted by Memloop

Do you guys think it's a good idea to always use :: before global constants, even if it's not necessary? I like it because it makes it clear that you are using a global variable, and it prevents you from accidentally using a local variable instead by mistake. I've seen some people prefix global variables with g_, but then you might as well use :: in my opinion.

Then again, the same thing could be said for always using this-> to access member data, which a lot of people probably find to be quite ugly.

:: is ugly and bad form. I would fire anyone that used it, well, I'd give them a talking to first, and if they kept it up I'd fire them.

I try to minimize my use of globals, if I need a lot of them, I use a global struct to contain them all. Then I only have to extern a single object to have access to all my global variables.

Originally Posted by abachler

I use a global struct to contain them all.

Is that global struct in a namespace? Otherwise, I don't see why accessing it with :: is bad form. It's a clear indication that the struct is indeed global. And if you're using it in a namespace, couldn't you just nest another namespace called "globals" or something within the main namespace instead of using a struct? The only difference would be using globals::constant instead of globals.constant.

As far as I can tell there's no practical difference between prefixing your global variables with g_ and using ::. If there is, please enlighten me.