Eclipse CDT code analysis thinks size_t is ambiguous

Question

It does, after all, get defined in stddef.h AND c++config.h:

c++config.h:

namespace std
{
  typedef __SIZE_TYPE__     size_t;
  typedef __PTRDIFF_TYPE__  ptrdiff_t;

#ifdef __GXX_EXPERIMENTAL_CXX0X__
  typedef decltype(nullptr) nullptr_t;
#endif
}

stddef.h:

typedef __SIZE_TYPE__ size_t;

So when a file does using namespace std, the Eclipse CDT code analysis gets confused and says the symbol is ambiguous. I don't know how gcc works around this, but does anybody have any suggestions on what to do for the eclipse code analysis?

Answer 1

I got around this by just completely disabling that error in code analysis.

Project -> Properties -> C/C++ General -> Code Analysis

Uncheck 'Ambiguous problem'

Answer 2

It is mostly, but not entirely, true that valid C code is also valid C++ code. You've hit a case where that's not true. This question has a very good answer about the difference in this case: Repeated typedefs - invalid in C but valid in C++? It's also worth noting that C11 will fix this incompatibility.

The upshot, really, is that this behavior is somewhere between a deficiency and a defect in the CDT code analysis. CDT ought to know that the code is C++ and to allow the syntax, but it seems as if it thinks it's C and is disallowing it.