Where to download C99 Standard

[Keith Thompson]

Le 01/01/11 23:44, Keith Thompson a écrit :

[long response snipped]

I had written a response to your long followup, but I've decided
not to post it. Quick summary: I actually agree with many of the
things you wrote, but others appear to have been made up. I'll be
glad to respond in more detail if you ask me to.

jacob, I was asking you about that one specific statement, quotes above:

Plauger would never do anything that his principal client would not
approve. This is just plain to anyone.

Apparently "his principal client" refers to Microsoft. I presume
that Microsoft is one of his clients; I have no idea whether they're
his *principal* client. Can you confirm that they are?

Your claim, as I understand it, is that P.J. Plauger pushed through
these changes to the standard at the behest of Microsoft. Based on
your lack of personal knowledge of Mr. Plauger (please correct me
if I'm mistaken on this point), and on the statements of others in
this thread, including current and former members of the C standard
committee who know him personally, I do not believe this to be true.

I believe you are making things up, and I'm sick and tired of it.
I *know* that you've made things up about me (for example, your
absurd and blatently false claim that I've fought against C99),
so I'm not surprised that you'd make things up about P.J. Plauger.

If you actually believe that what you're saying is true, stop for a
moment and consider whether you actually have any supporting evidence.
Consider the possibility that you might be wrong.

Provide some support for your claims or withdraw them.

 

[Chris H]

Le 31/12/10 23:00, Keith Thompson a écrit :

Plauger would never do anything that his principal client would not
approve. This is just plain to anyone.

I have nothing against microsoft as a company since I developed for
years for their products, but they contributed to the problems
of the c99 standard by boycotting it.

So did the rest of the industry. MS were not alone in this.... they were
in line with the norm.

They have dropped almost
completely any official C support, and stayed at c89 in their
compilers, ignoring even "long long" and stickying to their
__int64 nomenclature for years.

All this tells you is that ISO-C was not reflecting what the industry
wanted.

 

[Chris H]

FWIW, I've met Plauger, and read a fair bit of his writing, and I don't
believe that for a minute.

I agree with Seebs and Keith and yes I have met PJP and had discussions
with him.

 

[Chris H]

Le 01/01/11 23:44, Keith Thompson a écrit :

It is a fact that Plauger presented the key propositions of
taking out essential parts of C99.

I have said for some time (since 2007 I think) that this was on the
cards.

In fact, as has been
discussed elsewhere in this thread, this eliminates the C99
standard since nobody will develop to implement a standard
that is being dropped by its own standards committee.

NO One was implementing it anyway. What do you think will suddenly
change after a decade of non-implementation? All the ISO-C WG is doing
is making Optional things which most people never wanted or implemented

C is, as a matter of fact, rewound to the level of C89 until
xxxx years from now when the new standard is eventually
approved.

That is the de-facto reality other than there was no "re-wind" for the
implementers.

All this are the CONSEQUENCES of Plauger proposal. And this are
facts, Mr Thompson that you will never acknowledge of course.

WRONG.... Cause and effect.

CAUSE:- Effectively no one implemented C99 and were still over a decade
later not going to

EFFECT:- ISO-C WG says lets make some of the still no one is really
going to implement optional I made a proposal my self to this effect in
2004 at the Oxford meeting of WG14

I have worked for almost a decade in implementing C99 and
the fact that after all this discussions I see mr Hills
"I TOLD YOU I TOLD YOU"

Well I did from about 2004.

and all those people in this group (you and heathfield as principal
proponents) that fought AGAINST C99 be given reason by the
standards committee is just too much.
?

In this group there are the ones that pontificate (like you, without
ever propsoing anything formal into the standards body,

I was the UK C convenor for 4 years... I am also on the MISRA-C panel
that has direct Cat-C liasion with WG14

What did you do on the standards body?

or just "warn against portability problems of C99) etc,

Well there were very few or no compilers in many areas that implemented
C99

and the stupids like me that work for years constructing stuff,
developing programs, distributing them at personal expense
for free (to be treated of "shrewd software vendors") and at the end
see their work destroyed and realize, yes, I have worked for nothing.

Well everyone was telling you this to start with. You insisted on doing
C99 support when no one wanted it, no one asked for it and everyone else
told you it was a silly idea.

Will you (and seebs) deny that Plauger proposed to make many parts of
C99 optional?

I think he did propose to make it optional. However all he can do is
propose it to ANSI If they accept it and put it forward to ISO-WG14 ALL
the other national bodies vote on it. No one person can do anything on
their own.

Why do I have to give any PROOF?

Proof of WHAT?

It is a known fact that Plauger proposed that and that the committee
approved it.

SO it is the Committee that is in the pocket of M$? The ISO committee
made up of a couple of dozen nationalities? Clearly a conspiracy

 

[Alan Curry]

So did the rest of the industry. MS were not alone in this.... they were
in line with the norm.

google the phrase "requires a C99 compiler", or "requires a C99-compliant
compiler" and you'll find many packages depending on C99. And those are just
the ones that bothered to document it, and used those exact words.

Your "industry" seems to be less influential than you thought.

 

[jacob navia]

Le 02/01/11 22:11, Alan Curry a écrit :

google the phrase "requires a C99 compiler", or "requires a C99-compliant
compiler" and you'll find many packages depending on C99. And those are just
the ones that bothered to document it, and used those exact words.

Your "industry" seems to be less influential than you thought.

The only big compiler that did not implement C99 was Microsoft
gcc has a quite complete implementation, IBM also, Intel also,
etc.

But it is not worth bothering these people with facts. They have won,
and C has no standard <de facto>

 

[Keith Thompson]

Le 02/01/11 22:11, Alan Curry a ecrit :

The only big compiler that did not implement C99 was Microsoft
gcc has a quite complete implementation, IBM also, Intel also,
etc.

The pattern seems to be that most *hosted* implementations have
implemented most of C99; freestanding implementations probably
haven't. I'm not at all sure that this is correct; it's based mostly
on what I've read here, which I'm sure gives an incomplete picture.

[nonsense snipped]

 

[Chris H]

google the phrase "requires a C99 compiler", or "requires a C99-compliant
compiler" and you'll find many packages depending on C99. And those are just
the ones that bothered to document it, and used those exact words.

Your "industry" seems to be less influential than you thought.

So which compilers are C99 compliant? Many do some bits of C99 but there
are very few, and AFAIK no mainstream compilers, that are fully C99
compliant.

 

[Chris H]

Le 02/01/11 22:11, Alan Curry a écrit :

The only big compiler that did not implement C99 was Microsoft
gcc has a quite complete implementation, IBM also, Intel also,
etc.

Which "big" compilers implemented C99? IAR did not. ARM did not in fact
most of the worlds compilers did not....

But it is not worth bothering these people with facts. They have won,
and C has no standard <de facto>

That has been the case since 1999.

 

[jacob navia]

Le 03/01/11 12:08, Chris H a écrit :
etc.

Which "big" compilers implemented C99? IAR did not. ARM did not in fact
most of the worlds compilers did not....

IAR:
In the site of that company we can read:
http://www.iar.com/website1/1.0.1.0/50/1/

Language and standards
<quote>
* The C programming language as standardized by ISO/ANSI C94 with
selected features from C99
<end quote>
This is an ongoing implementation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ARM:
http://infocenter.arm.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.arm.doc.dui0472b/BABJGCID.html

<quote>
New library features of C99
The C99 standard introduces several new library features of interest to
programmers, including:
Some features similar to extensions to the C90 standard libraries
offered in UNIX standard libraries, for example, the snprintf family of
functions.
Some entirely new library features, for example, the standardized
floating-point environment offered in <fenv.h>.
New libraries, and new macros and functions for existing C90
libraries.

A selection of new features in C99 that might be of interest to
developers using them for the first time are documented.
* Additional <math.h> library functions in C99
* Complex numbers in C99
* Boolean type and <stdbool.h> in C99
* Extended integer types and functions in <inttypes.h> and
<stdint.h> in C99
* <fenv.h> floating-point environment access in C99
* <stdio.h> snprintf family of functions in C99
* <tgmath.h> type-generic math macros in C99
* <wchar.h> wide character I/O functions in C99.

</end quote>
Note that complex numbers ARE supported in this imp^lementation for
very low end ARM processors.

Mr Hills:

Either you know nothing about what you are talking about
or
You are just lying.

 

[Walter Banks]

Will you (and seebs) deny that Plauger proposed to make many parts of
C99 optional?

What PJP did propose was to identify the core features of C. The context of the
comments was important. This was at a time that ISO/IEC 18037 and the decimal
math standards were becoming standards. It was clear to everyone at WG14 that
these two TR's were not needed by everyone. The real question was if the TR's
were optional, what were the core features of C?

I have seen very little evidence that Microsoft has attempted any undue
influence on the C standards in any WG14 meeting I have attended. The technical
papers are online and in most cases the authors company affiliation is known.

Regards,

w..

 

[Chris H]

Le 03/01/11 12:08, Chris H a écrit :
etc.

IAR:
In the site of that company we can read:
http://www.iar.com/website1/1.0.1.0/50/1/

Language and standards
<quote>
* The C programming language as standardized by ISO/ANSI C94 with
selected features from C99
<end quote>
This is an ongoing implementation.
Mr Hills:

Either you know nothing about what you are talking about
or
You are just lying.

I know a Lot more about it than you do.

Everyone has done partial implementations (including GCC). No one in the
main stream has done full implementations. The problem is the C99 added
a hell of a lot of stuff no one wanted.

So far the people that according to you are "lying" the people who have
actually seen or been on the inside of the standard process.

All I can suggest is that you join your National Body for C
standardisation and take part in WG14.

 

[Chris H]

Le 03/01/11 12:08, Chris H a écrit :
etc.

IAR:
In the site of that company we can read:
http://www.iar.com/website1/1.0.1.0/50/1/

Language and standards
<quote>
* The C programming language as standardized by ISO/ANSI C94 with
selected features from C99
<end quote>

Mr Hills:

Either you know nothing about what you are talking about
or
You are just lying.

I appreciate that English is not your first language but as your quote
from IAR says we have a C94 compiler "with selected features from C99"

As I said IAR have not implemented a C99 compiler. They have a C94
compiler with some bits of C99 added. This is all any of the mainstream
compilers have done.

 

[Keith Thompson]

What PJP did propose was to identify the core features of C. The context of the
comments was important. This was at a time that ISO/IEC 18037 and the decimal
math standards were becoming standards. It was clear to everyone at WG14 that
these two TR's were not needed by everyone. The real question was if the TR's
were optional, what were the core features of C?

[...]

Are there any documents available online that discuss
the rationale for this? Probably something under
http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/, but there are a
lot of documents there.

 

[Keith Thompson]

So which compilers are C99 compliant? Many do some bits of C99 but there
are very few, and AFAIK no mainstream compilers, that are fully C99
compliant.

I think Intel has claimed that their compiler is fully C99 compliant.

gcc is certainly quite close. If you look at the current list on
<http://gcc.gnu.org/c99status.html>, several of the features marked
"Missing" are not actually required; for example, an implementation
is not required to provide any extended integer types. And the
only C99 features being made optional are complex types and VLAs,
both of which gcc implements, making those features optional will
have little impact on gcc users.

I believe there is a significant community of C programmers who
only use gcc.

Are there plans to make any more C99 features optional, or will it
be just VLAs and complex types?

 

[Chris H]

I think Intel has claimed that their compiler is fully C99 compliant.

Who which target?

gcc is certainly quite close.

No more so than anyone else. There is a lot more than x86 in the world
(IAR fro example has 35 other targets). I don't think there are any C99
complaint compilers for any other target.

 

[robertwessel2]

In message <[email protected]>, Keith Thompson <kst-
(e-mail address removed)> writes







Who which target?


No more so than anyone else. There is a lot more than x86 in the world
(IAR fro example has 35 other targets).  I don't think there are any C99
complaint compilers for any other target.

IBM's XL C/C++ claims C99 conformance for its POWER and zArch
versions. And Intel's ICC is available for IPF too (although I'm
unclear as to ICCs exact level of C99 conformance).

But it's pretty thin. Even the IBM compilers show a glaring hole:
IBM is pushing Linux on Z fairly heavily. And while they have a
version of their POWER compiler for both AIX and Linux, the Z compiler
is only available on ZOS and zVM, and *not* zLinux. Although in
practical terms, I suspect that XL C/C++ for Linux is a niche product
like ICC for Linux is.

 

[Keith Thompson]

Who which target?

A moment with Google indicates that it supports x86, x86-64 (or
whatever they're calling it these days), and Itanium 2, on compatible
processors, on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. (If you're going to
say that this is only a narrow selection of targets, please note
that I haven't claimed otherwise.)

No more so than anyone else.

I'm not convinced that that's correct. Take a look at

There is a lot more than x86 in the world
(IAR fro example has 35 other targets). I don't think there are any C99
complaint compilers for any other target.

Are you under the impression that gcc is specific to x86?

And again, a question you snipped from my previous article:

Are there plans to make any more C99 features optional, or will it
be just VLAs and complex types?

 

[Seebs]

So which compilers are C99 compliant? Many do some bits of C99 but there
are very few, and AFAIK no mainstream compilers, that are fully C99
compliant.

Well, that turns out not to matter. pseudo "requires C99", only of course
it doesn't, it just requires a few specific features (the C99 version of
the struct hack, designated initializers, and one or two others as I recall).

But since those features are in every implementation I care about, whatever.

-s

 

[Chris H]

Well, that turns out not to matter. pseudo "requires C99", only of course
it doesn't, it just requires a few specific features (the C99 version of
the struct hack, designated initializers, and one or two others as I recall).

But since those features are in every implementation I care about, whatever.

That is my point. No one fully implemented C99. Most implemented "some"
features"

So what I think ISO is looking at doing is making optional the things
that "most" compilers don't use. So we can get back to a core language
that everyone uses.

The 2004 C-Bed proposal was to have a small (C95 like) core and make
additional things optional in various appendices. So all compilers
could then validate to C-XX "with Appendix 1,3,6" etc as required.