c++ - Uses for anonymous namespaces in header files

Question

Someone asserted on SO today that you should never use anonymous namespaces in header files. Normally this is correct, but I seem to remember once someone told me that one of the standard libraries uses anonymous namespaces in header files to perform some sort of initialization.

Am I remembering correctly? Can someone fill in the details?

Answer 1

The only situation in which a nameless namespace in header can be useful is when you want to distribute code as header files only. For example, a large standalone subset of Boost is purely headers.

The token ignore for tuples, mentioned in another answer is one example, the _1, _2 etc. bind placeholders are others.