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    CWG Issue 1544</TITLE>
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<P><EM>This is an unofficial snapshot of the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG21
  Core Issues List revision 118b.
  See http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/ for the official
  list.</EM></P>
<P>2025-09-28</P>
<HR>
<A NAME="1544"></A><H4>1544.
  
Linkage of member of unnamed namespace
</H4>
<B>Section: </B>9.2.2&#160; [<A href="https://wg21.link/dcl.stc">dcl.stc</A>]
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Status: </B>CD3
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Submitter: </B>Nikolay Ivchenkov
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Date: </B>2012-08-24<BR>


<P>[Moved to DR at the April, 2013 meeting.]</P>



<P>There is a contradiction in the specification of the linkage of
members of the unnamed namespace, for example</P>

<PRE>
  namespace {
    int x;
  }
</PRE>

<P>According to 6.7 [<A href="https://wg21.link/basic.link#4">basic.link</A>] paragraph 4,</P>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

<P>An unnamed namespace or a namespace declared directly or indirectly
within an unnamed namespace has internal linkage. All other namespaces
have external linkage. A name having namespace scope that has not been
given internal linkage above has the same linkage as the enclosing
namespace if it is the name of</P>

<UL>
<LI><P>a variable; or</P></LI>

<LI><P>...</P></LI>
</UL>

</BLOCKQUOTE>

<P>which would give <TT>x</TT> internal linkage.  However,
9.2.2 [<A href="https://wg21.link/dcl.stc#7">dcl.stc</A>] paragraph 7 says,</P>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

A name declared in a namespace scope without a
<I>storage-class-specifier</I> has external linkage unless it has
internal linkage because of a previous declaration and provided it is
not declared <TT>const</TT>.

</BLOCKQUOTE>

<P>This would give <TT>x</TT> external linkage.  (This appears to have
been a missed edit from the resolution of <A HREF="1113.html">issue 1113</A>.)</P>

<P><B>Proposed resolution (October, 2012):</B></P>

<P>Delete 9.2.2 [<A href="https://wg21.link/dcl.stc#7">dcl.stc</A>] paragraph 7:</P>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

<DEL>A name declared in a namespace scope without a
<I>storage-class-specifier</I> has external linkage unless it has
internal linkage because of a previous declaration and provided it is
not declared <TT>const</TT>.  Objects declared <TT>const</TT> and not
explicitly declared <TT>extern</TT> have internal linkage.</DEL>

</BLOCKQUOTE>

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