Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 by Michael Barr

What sorts of things should you (or should you not) put in a C language .h header file? When should you create a header file? And why?

When I talk to embedded C programmers about hardware interfacing in C or Netrino’s Embedded C Coding Standard, I often come to see that they lack basic skills and information about the C programming language. This is usually because we are mostly a gang of electrical engineers who are self-taught in C (and every other programming language we use).

When the subject of header files comes up, here’s my list of do’s and don’ts:

DO create one .h header file for each “module” of the system. A module may comprise one or more compilation units (e.g., .c or .asm source code files). But it should implement just one aspect of the system. Examples of well-chosen modules are: a device driver for an A/D converter; a communication protocol, such as FTP; and an alarm manager that is solely responsible for logging error conditions and alerting the user of the active errors.

DO include in the header file all of the function prototypes for the public interface of the module it describes. For example a header file adc.h might contain function prototypes for adc_init(), adc_select_input(), and adc_read().

DON’T include in the header file any other function or macro that may lie inside the module source code. It is desirable to hide these internal “helper” functions inside the implementation. If it’s not called from any other module, hide it! (If your module spans several compilation units that need to share a helper function, then create a separate header file just for this purpose.) Module A should only call Module B through the public interface defined in moduleb.h.

DON’T include any executable lines of code in a header file, including variable declarations. But note it is necessary to make an exception for the bodies of some inline functions.

DON’T expose any variable in a header file, as is too often done by way of the ‘extern’ keyword. Proper encapsulation of a module requires data hiding: any and all internal state data in private variables inside the .c source code files. Whenever possible these variables should also be declared with keyword ‘static’ to enlist the linker’s help in hiding them.

DON’T expose the internal format of any module-specific data structure passed to or returned from one or more of the module’s interface functions. That is to say there should be no “struct { … } foo;” code in any header file. If you do have a type you need to pass in and out of your module, so client modules can create instances of it, you can simply “typedef struct foo moduleb_type” in the header file. Client modules should never know, and this way cannot know, the internal format of the struct.

Though not really specific to embedded software development, I hope this advice on good C programming practices is useful to you. If it is please let me know and I will provide more C advice in future blog posts.

Tags: architecture, embedded, firmware, programming, standards