Since C does not have namespaces, these libraries use internal linkage to avoid symbol conflicts. However, in C++, especially when writing modules, this is entirely unnecessary. These libraries can detect __cplusplus or some specific macro and drop static accordingly, without breaking existing code.

From: Std-Proposals <std-proposals-bounces@lists.isocpp.org> on behalf of Rainer Deyke via Std-Proposals <std-proposals@lists.isocpp.org>
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2026 20:04
To: std-proposals@lists.isocpp.org <std-proposals@lists.isocpp.org>
Cc: Rainer Deyke <rainerd@eldwood.com>
Subject: Re: [std-proposals] Proposal: Deprecate namespace-scope declarations that are declared both static and inline

On 6/22/26 13:23, Yexuan Xiao via Std-Proposals wrote:
> It seems that some C code likes to use static inline to indicate that a function should be inlined, but this is inconsistent with C++ conventions.

Given that the C code already exists and is already used from C++,
wouldn't it make more sense to give the C code C-like semantics in C++?

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Rainer Deyke - rainerd@eldwood.com
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