diff --git a/include/linux/Kbuild b/include/linux/Kbuild
index bd33c22315c178a9a84bbdf2d5f4c400ad19171d..37bfa19d8064857897c1144101da3b2e9b44f198 100644
--- a/include/linux/Kbuild
+++ b/include/linux/Kbuild
@@ -326,6 +326,7 @@ unifdef-y += sonypi.h
 unifdef-y += soundcard.h
 unifdef-y += stat.h
 unifdef-y += stddef.h
+unifdef-y += string.h
 unifdef-y += synclink.h
 unifdef-y += sysctl.h
 unifdef-y += tcp.h
diff --git a/include/linux/string.h b/include/linux/string.h
index 836062b7582a95d23878b994144f5cba85d4ce34..c5d3fcad7b57c87449d7de9085daa64cd80f984f 100644
--- a/include/linux/string.h
+++ b/include/linux/string.h
@@ -3,16 +3,14 @@
 
 /* We don't want strings.h stuff being user by user stuff by accident */
 
-#ifdef __KERNEL__
+#ifndef __KERNEL__
+#include <string.h>
+#else
 
 #include <linux/compiler.h>	/* for inline */
 #include <linux/types.h>	/* for size_t */
 #include <linux/stddef.h>	/* for NULL */
 
-#ifdef __cplusplus
-extern "C" {
-#endif
-
 extern char *strndup_user(const char __user *, long);
 
 /*
@@ -111,9 +109,5 @@ extern void *kmemdup(const void *src, size_t len, gfp_t gfp);
 extern char **argv_split(gfp_t gfp, const char *str, int *argcp);
 extern void argv_free(char **argv);
 
-#ifdef __cplusplus
-}
-#endif
-
 #endif
 #endif /* _LINUX_STRING_H_ */