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9 years, 1 month ago.

Why mbed selects C++?

Why mbed selects C++? In embedded field, C is a more widely-used language than C++. There are many firmware programmer don't know about C++(In China). If mbed used C, it would be welcomed by more programmer.

2 Answers

Erik -
9 years, 1 month ago.

C++ is probably easier for beginners, and the overhead is acceptable for most of the mbed targets. While traditionally C is indeed more popular, I do think C++ is gaining ground. However it is possible to use much of the mbed API as C, since the underlying functions are all C. The C++ part is more a wrapper, but a wrapper which does implement some of the logic required.

That said, if you are competent in C, I don't think it should take you more than a week to get productive in C++, if you just look at the basic like classes. Of course you will run into stuff which takes more figuring out (like templates), but the basic is really similar.

Accepted Answer
David Fletcher
9 years, 1 month ago.

You can write C code for the mbed compiler, just use .cpp extensions, not .c. Just remember to use,

  #ifdef __cplusplus
  extern "C" {
  #endif 	

  #ifdef  __cplusplus
  }
  #endif /*  __cplusplus */

Edit: Thanks Stephen!

Your code tags have spaces in them.

posted by Stephen Paulger 26 Mar 2015