C Language Create and include header files Idempotence
Example
If a particular header file is included more than once in a translation unit (TU),
there should not be any compilation problems.
This is termed 'idempotence'; your headers should be idempotent.
Think how difficult life would be if you had to ensure that #include <stdio.h> was only included once.
There are two ways to achieve idempotence: header guards and the #pragma once directive.
Header guards
Header guards are simple and reliable and conform to the C standard. The first non-comment lines in a header file should be of the form:
#ifndef UNIQUE_ID_FOR_HEADER
#define UNIQUE_ID_FOR_HEADER
The last non-comment line should be #endif, optionally with a comment after it:
#endif /* UNIQUE_ID_FOR_HEADER */
All the operational code, including other #include directives, should
be between these lines.
Each name must be unique. Often, a name scheme such as HEADER_H_INCLUDED is used.
Some older code uses a symbol defined as the header guard (e.g. #ifndef BUFSIZ in <stdio.h>), but it is not as reliable as a unique name.
One option would be to use a generated MD5 (or other) hash for the header guard name. You should avoid emulating the schemes used by system headers which frequently use names reserved to the implementation — names starting with an underscore followed by either another underscore or an upper-case letter.
The #pragma once Directive
Alternatively, some compilers support the #pragma once directive which has the same effect as the three lines shown for header guards.
#pragma once
The compilers which support #pragma once include MS Visual Studio and GCC and Clang.
However, if portability is a concern, it is better to use header guards, or use both.
Modern compilers (those supporting C89 or later) are required to ignore, without comment, pragmas that they do not recognize ('Any such pragma that is not recognized by the implementation is ignored') but old versions of GCC were not so indulgent.
