Elysian Shadows

What is the purpose of a namespace, and why use it? I know there's namespace std in the STL, and Nehe's new tutorials have a namespace nehe, but what do you actually use it for?

A namespace is basically making things neat... it's a container if you will...
The namespace you are in is just a way to keep all your classes organized under something bigger.

Commands are in a function, functions are in classes, classes are in a namespace.

If you're working on a large project it prevents function/class name overlap, theoretically, too. I've never used one in a C++ project, although I use them in C# on separate modules with namespaces of "Appname.Business" (contains classes that do calculations on data), "Appname.Data" (contains classes that interface with database), "Appname.Utility" (contains secure redirect fn)...

The namespace concept appears in order to control the scope of names to allow the same names to be used without conflicts - Text from the book "Programming in c++"

Namespaces are used to avoid name clashes between existing libraries, and anything you might write (in its most basic use).

I've seen it used in a modular programming paradigm as well.

BOMBERMAN wrote:The namespace concept appears in order to control the scope of names to allow the same names to be used without conflicts - Text from the book "Programming in c++"

I thought that might have been what it was... Thanks for clarifying.