main() inside a module?

[jvp...@g.rit.edu]

One feature of #includes that I particularly like is that it allows you to include a generic main() function. Should this also be allowed in modules? I hope so.[1]

#including a main() function is particularly useful in cases where you have N different binaries all following the same basic template. The most obvious example of this is when writing unit tests. A developer might have a whole bunch of separate binaries for testing various projects (or parts of a given project), and all of these should have the same entry point, with the same command-line args, etc. As a developer of a unit test framework, I'd want users of the library to be able to #include (or import) the appropriate file/module and get a main() function for free.

Granted, it would be a simple matter of writing a main() function for each binary that just forwards on to the real implementation inside the module, but that's not required when using #includes, and so it would make it considerably less enticing to migrate to modules in a case like this.

- Jim

[1] Some of this is probably an implementation issue: for instance, Linux is perfectly happy with main() coming from a shared library, however (as far as I know), neither Mac or Windows will allow this.

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

In the N4047 design, main() belongs to the global module; I don’t see a fundamental motivation to have it owned by a particular module other than the global module.

 

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