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Does anybody have any tip how to handle the symbolic constants and types definition in large program in a system manner to avoid circular dependencies between the header files? I have an idea to define one header file which will contain all structs, unions and enum types definitions and another header file which will contain all symbolic constants definitions. But I have doubts as far as this solution regarding to implementation hiding. Thank you for any ideas.
919
There are a couple of options to get rid of circular dependencies. For a longer chain, A -> B -> C -> D -> A , if one of the references is removed (for instance, the D -> A reference), the cyclic reference pattern is broken, as well. For simpler patterns, such as A -> B -> A , refactoring may be necessary.
In software engineering, a circular dependency is a relation between two or more modules which either directly or indirectly depend on each other to function properly. Such modules are also known as mutually recursive.
To reduce or eliminate circular dependencies, architects must implement loose component coupling and isolate failures. One approach is to use abstraction to break the dependency chain. To do this, you introduce an abstracted service interface that delivers underlying functionality without direct component coupling.
It can't, as you can't create circular dependencies.
You can separate out the typedef statements from the actual struct definitions and place them before including the other headers. This way if your datatype foo contains a member of type bar *, it doesn't need the definition of bar straight away - it'll be happy enough knowing that it's a valid datatype that will get resolved later.
#ifndef FOO_H
#define FOO_H
typedef struct foo_s foo;
#include "bar.h"
struct foo_s
{
bar *my_bar;
};
#endif
.
#ifndef BAR_H
#define BAR_H
typedef struct bar_s bar;
#include "foo.h"
struct bar_s
{
foo *my_foo;
};
#endif
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