Global variables in header file

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There are 3 scenarios, you describe:

  1. with 2 .c files and with int i; in the header.
  2. With 2 .c files and with int i=100; in the header (or any other value; that doesn’t matter).
  3. With 1 .c file and with int i=100; in the header.

In each scenario, imagine the contents of the header file inserted into the .c file and this .c file compiled into a .o file and then these linked together.

Then following happens:

  1. works fine because of the already mentioned “tentative definitions”: every .o file contains one of them, so the linker says “ok”.

  2. doesn’t work, because both .o files contain a definition with a value, which collide (even if they have the same value) – there may be only one with any given name in all .o files which are linked together at a given time.

  3. works of course, because you have only one .o file and so no possibility for collision.

IMHO a clean thing would be

  • to put either extern int i; or just int i; into the header file,
  • and then to put the “real” definition of i (namely int i = 100;) into file1.c. In this case, this initialization gets used at the start of the program and the corresponding line in main() can be omitted. (Besides, I hope the naming is only an example; please don’t name any global variables as i in real programs.)

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