Why do the C++ source files use a ".cc" extension in the Unix version of DCMTK, but a ".cxx" extension in the Windows version?
The ".cc" extension is there mostly for historical reasons - this is the naming scheme we adopted when we initialized our code maintenance system. Unfortunately, not all C++ compilers accept ".cc" as a valid extension for C++ files. Two noteworthy exceptions are the IBM AIX XL C++ Compiler which requires ".C" with an uppercase "C" as extension and Microsoft Visual C++, which expects ".cxx" or ".cpp".On Unix platforms, the file name extension can easily be changed using the "changext" shell script which is located in the config directory of the DCMTK source distribution. A call to "config/changext C cc" will rename all ".cc" files within the DCMTK tree to ".C" and will also update makefiles, dependency files etc. For Win32 users, we provide a source code distribution in which extensions have been changed to ".cxx" for convenience.
Alternatively, the ".cc" extension can be added to Visual C++'s settings in the system registry under the following position (note that for other versions of Visual C++ than 6.0, the registry position might be different). Append ";*.cc" to the value for the Input_Spec key, which defaults to "*.c;*.cpp;*.cxx". Thanks to Norbert Lindlbauer <norbert.lindlbauer at web dot de> for this useful hint.
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HKEY_CURRENT_USER
+ Software
+ Microsoft
+ DevStudio
+ 6.0
+ Build System
+ Components
+ Platforms
+ Win32 (x86)
+ Tools
+ 32-Bit C/C++-Compiler for 80x86
+ Input_Spec