Editing Scope (computer science) (section)

=== File scope ===
The scope of a name binding is a file, which is known as '''file scope'''. File scope is largely particular to C (and C++), where scope of variables and functions declared at the top level of a file (not within any function) is for the entire file—or rather for C, from the declaration until the end of the source file, or more precisely [[Translation unit (programming)|translation unit]] (internal linking). This can be seen as a form of module scope, where modules are identified with files, and in more modern languages is replaced by an explicit module scope. Due to the presence of include statements, which add variables and functions to the internal context and may themselves call further include statements, it can be difficult to determine what is in context in the body of a file.

In the C code snippet above, the function name <code>sum_of_squares</code> has global scope (in C, extern linkage). Adding <syntaxhighlight lang="C" inline>static</syntaxhighlight> to the function signature would result in file scope (internal linkage).