I have seen C/C++ code using extern "C" declared in function signatures and also while including a C header into a CPP file.
but some functions just declare extern before their signature(without the "C").
QN1:
are these both ways of defining functions have same effect or do they imply different things?
sorry if I am very silly but I am not able to find this difference through Google.
Eg:
extern int someFunction( void *ret_val);
extern "C" int someFunction( void *ret_val);
QN2:
if a function is declared with an extern in its signature, is it necessary for the corresponding header file to be included inside a extern "C" block?
As pointed by another user in comments, the marked duplicate does not fully satisfy the question here. I am editing so that in future others may not be mislead into a different question.
The presence of extern "C" in a C++ file is a personal intent to disable name-mangling transformation that the C++ compiler does to the functions in that file. When there is no name-mangling, then a client C code can call these functions. This is done when you have a mixture of C/C++ code and you need to keep track of language-specific features. In a bit more geeky way, the C linkage becomes compatible in presence of a Cpp compiler.
The code could be anything from a variable/typedef to a full function/module declaration.
But if you do this:
extern char c; // same goes true for extern int foo()
it means that you are saying "I am using char c, which has a declaration external to this file". More like in another module somewhere in the search-path. This is implicitly global. In runtime, if c changes, the change is reflected everywhere. This is provided that your compiler directives such as -Iinclude_file_dirs -Ssource_file_dirs etc. are provided correctly (on GCC or g++). Using a powerful IDE such as Visual Studio 2010 or later, you can do these very easily.
"extern" is a linkage keyword. You can combine it with "C" for compiler-specific linkage directives.