All functions and global data are prepended with either PUBLIC
or PRIVATE. These macros are defined in
HTUtils.html. In
practice PUBLIC is defined to nothing and PRIVATE
is static. These tags are also useful for scripts that search
the code for functions (e.g.
makedefs).
It is used in a function or variable declaration to signify that the function
is private to the module, rather than public (the default). Avoids the confusion
in C between "static" used in this sense, and used to declare
storage variables within blocks as static as opposed to automatic.
It is used to signify that a function is part of the public interface. As this macro is used in windows to generate DLLs it is very important that you use it! It also is a good idea to use simply because it ensures that the programmer has thought about it. This prevents unnecessary accidental public definitions which may later clash with other people's routines.