it might even create a false impression that interoperability is possible and safe when it isn't. Name mangling is only one of several application binary interface (ABI) details that need to be decided and observed by a C++ implementation. Other ABI aspects like exception handling, virtual table layout, structure, and stack frame padding also cause differing C++ implementations to be incompatible. Further, requiring a particular form of mangling would cause issues for systems where implementation limits (e.g., length of symbols) dictate a particular mangling scheme. A standardized requirement for name mangling would also prevent an implementation where mangling was not required at all — for example, a linker that understood the C++ language. The C++ standard therefore does not attempt to standardize name mangling. On the contrary, the Annotated C++ Reference Manual (also known as ARM, , section 7.2.1c) actively encourages the use of different mangling schemes to prevent linking when other aspects of the ABI are incompatible. Nevertheless, as detailed in the section above, on some platforms the full C++ ABI has been standardized, including name mangling. Real-world effects of C++ name mangling Because C++ symbols are routinely exported from DLL and shared object files, the name mangling scheme is not merely a compiler-internal matter. Different compilers (or different versions of the same compiler, in many cases) produce such binaries under different name decoration schemes, meaning that symbols are frequently unresolved if the compilers used to create the library and the program using it employed different schemes. For example, if a system with multiple C++ compilers installed (e.g., GNU GCC and the OS vendor's compiler) wished to install the Boost C++ Libraries, it would have to be compiled multiple times (once for GCC and once for the vendor compiler). It is good for safety purposes that compilers producing incompatible object codes (codes based on different ABIs, regarding e.g., classes and exceptions) use different name mangling schemes. This guarantees that these incompatibilities are detected at the linking phase, not when executing the software (which could lead to obscure bugs and serious stability issues). For this reason, name decoration is an important aspect of any C++-related ABI. There are instances, particularly in large, complex code bases, where it can be difficult or impractical to map the mangled name emitted within a linker error message back to the particular corresponding token/variable-name in the source. This problem can make identifying the relevant source