Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)

Softpanorama C Language Webliography

Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

Old News ;-)

V IDE

V IDE works with GNU g++, Borland C++ 5.5 and Java and runs on Windows and Linux. It includes a syntax highlighting editor for C/C++, Java, Perl, Fortran, TeX and HTML. It has a built-in code beautifier, macro support, ctags support, project manager, integrated support for the V applications generator and icon editor, integrated support for the GNU gdb and Sun's jdb (for Java), etc.

Slashdot Optimizations - Programmer vs. Compiler

Highlight UnMatched Brackets - Capture those unmatched brackets while u r still in insert-mode vim online

Its really irksome when your compiler complains for any unmatched "{" or "(" or "[". With this plugin you can highlight all those unmatched "{" or "("  or  "[" as you type. This helps you to keep track of where the exact closing bracket should come. This plugin also warns you of any extra "}" or ")" or "]" you typed.

Customization:  
   - Specifying Additional Bracket-pairs.
              User can specify additional matching pairs in
                     the global option 'matchpairs', see :help 'matchpairs'
                     For eg: set mps+=<:> (to include <> pair)
                     put the above setting in .vimrc file and restart vim.
                  - To get rid of highlighting when you quit insert
                     mode, add this mapping in your vimrc
                           noremap! <Esc> <Esc>:match NONE<CR>

To test how this plugin works type something like
{
  (     ) [ ]
  ( ( ( ) ) )
}

Happy vimming.

ShowFunc.vim - Creates a list of all tags - functions from a window, all windows or buffers. vim online

vimcommander - totalcommander-like two-panel tree file explorer for vim vim online

c.vim - Write C-C++ programs by inserting statements, idioms and comments. vim online

[Jan 2, 2005]  CRefVim - a C-reference manual especially designed for Vim vim online

The intention of this project is to provide a C-reference manual that can be viewed with Vim and accessed from within Vim. The C-reference is a reference, it is NOT a tutorial or a guide on how
to write C-programs. It is a quick reference to the functions and syntax  of the standard C language.

[Jan 2, 2005] C-fold - Automates folding and unfolding C & C++ comments and code blocks. vim online

Automatically folds all blocks (i.e. { } ) in C and C++ and defines a function that performs a command e.g. zo on all folds beginning with text that matches a given pattern.

This allows for the following mappings defined by the plugin:

      z[ - Opens all doxygen-style comments
      z] - Closes all doxygen-style comments
      z{ - Opens all code blocks (i.e. {  })
      z} - Closes all code blocks   install details Extract the archive from your home directory. This will extract the following files:
      .vim/plugins/cfold.vim
      .vim/after/syntax/c.vim

Also requires the folding of Doxygen-style comments. This requires vimscript #5. This can be done easily by adding the 'fold' keyword to the end of the 'doxygenComment' region in the 'doxygen.vim' syntax file:

      syn region doxygenComment start= ... keepend fold

Additional languages can be supported as appropriate (e.g. Java) by copying 'c.vim' and renaming to the syntax file for the language (e.g. java.vim).

Linux Online - The Linux Tips HOWTO Short Tips

I do a lot of C programming in my spare time, and I've taken the time to rig vi to be C friendly. Here's my .exrc:

set autoindent
set shiftwidth=4
set backspace=2
set ruler

What does this do? autoindent causes vi to automatically indent each line following the first one indented, shiftwidth sets the distance of ^T to 4 spaces, backspace sets the backspace mode, and ruler makes it display the line number. Remember, to go to a specific line number, say 20, use:

vi +20 myfile.c

 

2.18 Using ctags to ease programming.

Most hackers already have ctags on their computers, but don't use it. It can be very handy for editing specific functions. Suppose you have a function, in one of many source files in a directory for a program you're writing, and you want to edit this function for updates. We'll call this function foo(). You don't where it is in the source file, either. This is where ctags comes in handy. When run, ctags produces a file named tags in the current dir, which is a listing of all the functions, which files they're in and where they are in said files. The tags file looks like this:

ActiveIconManager       iconmgr.c       /^void ActiveIconManager(active)$/
AddDefaultBindings      add_window.c    /^AddDefaultBindings ()$/
AddEndResize    resize.c        /^AddEndResize(tmp_win)$/
AddFuncButton   menus.c /^Bool AddFuncButton (num, cont, mods, func, menu, item)$/
AddFuncKey      menus.c /^Bool AddFuncKey (name, cont, mods, func, menu, win_name, action)$/
AddIconManager  iconmgr.c       /^WList *AddIconManager(tmp_win)$/
AddIconRegion   icons.c /^AddIconRegion(geom, grav1, grav2, stepx, stepy)$/
AddStartResize  resize.c        /^AddStartResize(tmp_win, x, y, w, h)$/
AddToClientsList        workmgr.c       /^void AddToClientsList (workspace, client)$/
AddToList       list.c  /^AddToList(list_head, name, ptr)$/

To edit, say AddEndResize() in vim, run:

vim -t AddEndResize

This will bring the appropriate file up in the editor, with the cursor located at the beginning of the function.

 

[Jan 2, 2005] C-editing-with-VIM-HOWTO. See also Ctags code browsing framework

3.1. ctags

A Tag is a sort of placeholder. Tags are very useful in understanding and
editing C. Tags are a set of book-marks to each function in a C file. Tags
are very useful in jumping to the definition of a function from where it is
called and then jumping back.

Take the following example.


Figure 6. Tags Example

[tags]

Lets say that you are editing the function foo() and you come across the
function bar(). Now, to see what bar() does, one makes uses of Tags. One can
jump to the definition of bar() and then jump back later. If need be, one can
jump to another function called within bar() and back.

To use Tags one must first run the program ctags on all the source files.
This creates a file called tags. This file contains pointers to all the
function definitions and is used by VIM to take you to the function
definition.

The actual keystrokes for jumping to and fro are CTRL-] and CTRL-T. By
hitting CTRL-] in foo() at the place where bar() is called, takes the cursor
to the beginning of bar(). One can jump back from bar() to foo() by just
hitting CTRL-T.

ctags are called by
            $ ctags options file(s)                                         
                                                                            

To make a tags file from all the *.c files in the current directory all one
needs to say is
            $ ctags *.c                                                     
                                                                            

In case of a source tree which contains C files in different sub directories,
one can call ctags in the root directory of the source tree with the -R
option and a tags file containing Tags to all functions in the source tree
will be created. For Example.
            $ ctags -R *.c                                                  
                                                                            

There are many other options to use with ctags. These options are explained
in the man file for ctags.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.2. marks

Marks are place-holders like Tags. However, marks can be set at any point in
a file and is not limited to only functions, enums etc.. Plus marks have be
set manually by the user.

By setting a mark there is no visible indication of the same. A mark is just
a position in a file which is remembered by VIM. Consider the following code


Figure 7. The marks example

[marks]

Suppose you are editing the line x++; and you want to come back to that line
after editing some other line. You can set a mark on that line with the
keystroke m' and come back to the same line later by hitting ''.

VIM allows you to set more than one mark. These marks are stored in registers
a-z, A-Z and 1-0. To set a mark and store the same in a register say j, all
one has to hit is mj. To go back to the mark one has to hit 'j.

Multiple marks are really useful in going back and fro within a piece of
code. Taking the same example, one might want one mark at x++; and another at
y=x; and jump between them or to any other place and then jump back.

Marks can span across files. To use such marks one has to use upper-case
registers i.e. A-Z. Lower-case registers are used only within files and do
not span files. That's to say, if you were to set a mark in a file foo.c in
register "a" and then move to another file and hit 'a, the cursor will not
jump back to the previous location. If you want a mark which will take you to
a different file then you will need to use an upper-case register. For
example, use mA instead of ma. I'll talk about editing multiple files in a
later section.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.3. gd keystroke

Consider the following piece of code.


Figure 8. The third example

[gd]

For some reason you've forgotten what y and z are and want to go to their
declaration double quick. One way of doing this is by searching backwards for
y or z. VIM offers a simpler and quicker solution. The gd keystroke stands
for Goto Declaration. With the cursor on "y" if you hit gd the cursor will
take you to the declaration :- struct Y y;.

A similar keystroke is gD. This takes you to the global declaration of the
variable under the cursor. So if one want to go to the declaration of x, then
all one needs to do is hit gD and the cursor will move to the declaration of
x.
 

[Dec 26, 2004] Writing a C-based Client-Server

Consider for a moment having the massive power of different computers all simultaneously trying to compute a problem for you—and still being legal! With the commonplace interconnectivity that a network brings, you can do just that. All you need is a login and a compiler—and a few system calls.

Network programming extends the ability to solve computational problems. Nearly all network programs use sockets to provide connection points between the source and destination. You can compare sockets with an in/out box for messages between tasks on different computers. All you need is a host address and port, and you can send and receive messages from anywhere on your network.

See also

• Datagrams and Multicasting (Part 1)
• Datagrams and Multicasting (Part 2)
• Securing Sockets with OpenSSL (Part 1)
• Securing Sockets with OpenSSL (Part 2)
• CryptoNugget

[Nov 12, 2004] C Coroutines

co_create, co_call, co_resume, co_delete, co_exit_to,   co_exit - C coroutine management

The coro library implements the low level functionality  for coroutines.  For a definition of the term coroutine see The Art of Computer Programming by Donald E. Knuth.   In short, you may think of coroutines as a very simple cooperative multitasking environment where the switch from one task to another is done explicitly by a function call. And, coroutines are fast.  Switching from one coroutine to   another takes only a couple of assembler instructions more than a normal function call.

This document defines an API for the low level handling of coroutines i.e. creating and deleting coroutines and switching between them.  Higher level functionality (scheduler, etc.) is not covered.

[Oct 28, 2004] Open source compiler demos speed, compactness with boottime compile trick

A project to build a C compiler small enough to enable C to be used as a scripting language has released an impressive technology demonstration: a bootloader that uses the Tiny C Compiler (TCC) to compile a Linux kernel from source at boot-time in as little as 15 seconds.

TCCBoot is framed on creator Fabrice Bellard's website as a demonstration application for Bellard's Tiny C Compiler (TCC), described as "a tiny but complete ISOC99 C compiler which enables you to use C as scripting language." According to Bellard, TCC is several times faster than gcc, produces optimized code, and is small enough "(about 100KB for x86 TCC executable, including C preprocessor, C compiler, assembler and linker)" to be used on rescue disks, among other features.

TCCBoot is distributed as an ISO image, as well as source code. The ISO image can be burned onto a CD and used to boot x86 PCs. The CD first loads an initrd filesystem on which kernel C and assembly code have been stashed in a gzipped ROMFS. It then reads a TCC config file before compiling a binary kernel image. the image is then booted, leaving the user in a rudimentary Linux environment featuring a very basic shell with benchmarking software.

We couldn't resist trying it. The whole boot process took about 45 seconds, including 33 seconds of compile time, on a 1.6GHz Pentium M.

Project creator Fabrice Bellard writes, "It is sure that there are still many bugs in the kernel generated by TinyCC/TCCBOOT, but at least it can boot and launch a shell."

Among Bellard's other accomplishments are a victory in a 1997 "obfuscated C" programming contest, and the creation of the "most efficient formula to date to compute the nth binary digits of Pi." Bellard also made significant contributions to a project to create GPL support for Memory Technology Devices (MTD) DiskOnChip technology.

More details about TCC, TCCBoot and Bellard's other interesting projects are available on his website.

[Sept 10, 2004] http://www.digitalmars.com/  

Digital Mars C and C++ Compilers for Win32, Win16, DOS32 and DOS. Fastest compile/link times, powerful optimization technology, Design by Contract, complete library source, HTML browsable documentation, disassembler, librarian, resource compiler, make, etc., command line and GUI versions, tutorials, sample code, online updates, Standard Template Library, and much more! 

[ Mar 24  2004] Open source development using C99 Is your C code up to standard? by Peter Seebach (developerworks@seebs.plethora.net) What is C99? Who needs it? Is it available yet? Peter Seebach discusses the 1999 revision of the ISO C standard, with a focus on the availability of new features on Linux and BSD systems.

... ... ...
There are two parts of the C programming language. These are, confusingly, called the "language" and the "library." Historically, there was a bundle of commonly used utility code that everyone tended to reuse; this was eventually standardized into what's called the Standard C Library. The distinction was pretty easy to understand at first: If the compiler did it, it was the language; if it was in the add-on code, it was the library.

With time, however, the distinction has been blurred. For instance, some compilers will generate calls to an external library for 64-bit arithmetic, and some library functions might be handled magically by the compiler. For the purposes of this article, the division follows the terminology of the standard: features from the "Library" section of the standard are library features and are discussed in the next section of the article. This section looks at everything else.

The C99 language introduces a number of new features that are of potential interest to software developers. Many of these features are similar to features of the GNU C set of extensions to C; unfortunately, in some cases, they are not quite compatible.

A few features popularized by C++ have made it in. In particular, // comments and mixed declarations and code have become standard features of C99. These have been in GNU C forever and should work on every platform. In general, though, C and C++ remain separate languages; indeed, C99 is a little less compatible with C++ than C89 was. As always, trying to write hybrid code is a bad idea. Good C code will be bad C++ code.

C99 added some support for Unicode characters, both within string literals and in identifiers. In practice, the system support for this probably isn't where it needs to be for most users; don't expect source that uses this to be accessible to other people just yet. In general, the wide character and unicode support is mostly there in the compiler, but the text processing tools aren't quite up to par yet.

The new variable-length array (VLA) feature is partially available. Simple VLAs will work. However, this is a pure coincidence; in fact, GNU C has its own variable-length array support. As a result, while simple code using variable-length arrays will work, a lot of code will run into the differences between the older GNU C support for VLAs and the C99 definition. Declare arrays whose length is a local variable, but don't try to go much further.

Compound literals and designated initializers are a wonderful code maintainability feature. Compare these two code fragments:

Listing 1. Delaying for n microseconds in C89
 

/* C89 */ { struct timeval tv = { 0, n }; select(0, 0, 0, 0, &tv); }

 

Listing 2. Delaying for n microseconds in C99
 

// C99 select(0, 0, 0, 0, & (struct timeval) { .tv_usec = n });

The syntax for a compound literal allows a brace-enclosed series of values to be used to initialize an automatic object of the appropriate type. The object is reinitialized each time its declaration is reached, so it's safe with functions (such as some versions of select) that may modify the corresponding object. The designated initializer syntax allows you to initialize members by name, without regard to the order in which they appear in an object. This is especially useful for large and complicated objects with only a few members initialized. As with a normal aggregate initializer, missing values are treated as though they'd been given 0 as an initializer. Other initialization rules have changed a bit. For instance, you're now allowed to have a trailing comma after the last member of an enum declaration, to make it just a bit easier to write code generators.

For years, people have been debating extensions to the C type system, such as long long. C99 introduces a handful of new integer types. The most widely used is long long. Another type introduced by the standards process is intmax_t. Both of these types are available in gcc. However, the integer promotion rules are not always correct for types larger than long. It's probably best to use explicit casts.

There are also a lot of types allowing more specific descriptions of desired qualities. For instance, there are types with names like int_least8_t, which has at least 8 bits, and int32_t, which has exactly 32 bits. The standard guarantees access to types of at least 8, 16, 32, and 64 bits. There is no promise that any exact-width types will be provided. Don't use such types unless you are really, totally sure that you can't accept a larger type. Another optional type is the new intptr_t type, which is an integer large enough to hold a pointer. Not all systems provide such a type (although all current Linux and BSD implementations do).

The C preprocessor has a number of new features. It allows empty arguments, and it supports macros with varying numbers of arguments. There is a _Pragma operator for macro-generating pragmas, and there's a __func__ macro, which always contains the name of the current function. These features are available in current versions of gcc.

C99 added the inline keyword to suggest function inlining. GNU C also supports this keyword, but with slightly different semantics. If you're using gcc, you should always use the static keyword on inline functions if you want the same behavior as C99 would give for the code. This may be addressed in future revisions; in the meantime, you can use inline as a compiler hint, but don't depend on the exact semantics.

C99 introduced a qualifier, restrict, which can give a compiler optimization hints about pointers. Because there is no requirement that a compiler do anything with this, it's done in that gcc accepts it. The degree of optimization done varies. It's safe to use, but don't count on it making a huge difference yet. On a related note, the new type-aliasing rules are fully supported in gcc. This mostly means that you must be more careful about type punning, which is almost always going to invoke undefined behavior, unless the type you're using to access data of the wrong sort is unsigned char.

Array declarators as function arguments now have a meaningful difference from pointer declarators: you can put in type qualifiers. Of particular interest is the very odd optimizer hint of giving an array declarator the static type modifier. Given this declaration: int foo(int a[static 10]);

It is undefined behavior to call foo() with a pointer that doesn't point to at least 10 objects of type int. This is an optimizer hint. All you're doing is promising the compiler that the argument passed to the function will be at least that large; some machines might use this for loop unrolling. As old hands will be well aware, it's not a new C standard without an entirely new meaning for the static keyword.

One last feature to mention is flexible array members. There is a common problem of wanting to declare a structure that is essentially a header followed by some data bytes. Unfortunately, C89 provided no good way to do this without giving the structure a pointer to a separately allocated region. Two common solutions included declaring a member with exactly one byte of storage, then allocating extra and overrunning the bounds of the array, and declaring a member with more storage than you could possibly need, underallocating, and being careful to use only the storage available. Both of these were problematic for some compilers, so C99 introduced a new syntax for this:

Listing 3. A structure with a flexible array
 

struct header { size_t len; unsigned char data[]; };

This structure has the useful property that if you allocate space for (sizeof(struct header) + 10) bytes, you can treat data as being an array of 10 bytes. This new syntax is supported in gcc.

Library features
That's fine for the compiler. What about the standard library? A lot of the library features added in C99 were based on existing practice, especially practices found in the BSD and Linux communities. So, many of these features are preexisting ones already found in the Linux and BSD standard libraries. Many of these features are simple utility functions; almost all of them could in principle be done in portable code, but many of them would be exceedingly difficult.

Some of the most convenient features added in C99 are in the printf family of functions. First, the v*scanf functions have become standardized; for every member of the scanf family, there is a corresponding v*scanf function that takes a va_list parameter instead of a variable argument list. These functions serve the same role as the v*printf functions, allowing user-defined functions that take variable argument lists and end up calling a function from the printf or scanf family to do the hard work.

Secondly, the 4.4BSD snprintf function family has been imported. The snprintf function allows you to print safely into a buffer of fixed size. When told to print no more than n bytes, snprintf guarantees that it creates a string of length no more than n-1, with a null terminator at the end of the string. However, its return code is the number of characters it would have written if n had been large enough. Thus, you can reliably find out how much buffer space you would need to format something completely. This function is available everywhere, and you should use it just about all the time; a lot of security holes have been based on buffer overruns in sprintf, and this can protect against them.

A number of new math features, including complex math features and special functions designed to help optimizing compilers for specific floating point chips are in the new standard, but not reliably implemented everywhere. If you need these functions, it is best to check on the exact platform you're targeting. The floating point environment functions are not always supported, and some platforms will not have support for IEEE arithmetic. Don't count on these new features yet.

The strftime() function has been extended in C99 to provide a few more commonly desired formatting characters. These new characters appear to be available on recent Linux and BSD systems; they aren't always widely available on somewhat older systems, though. Check the documentation before using new formats.

As noted, most of the internationalization code is not reliably implemented yet.

Other new library features are typically not universally available; the math functions are likely to be available in supercomputer compilers, and the internationalization functions are likely to be available in compilers developed outside the United States. Compiler vendors implement the features they have a call for.

... ... ...

Resources

• The current status of C99 language work is on the GNU project's page. New versions of gcc will probably change some of these.
• WG14 is the ISO working group that produced C99.
• Wiley produces a hardcopy version of ISO C 1999, including the first Technical Corrigendum (ISBN 0-470-84573-2).
• The Rationale for the C99 standard is available online in PDF format.
• Kernighan & Ritchie's The C Programming Language was the first to describe C. The original ANSI standard was based on the first edition of the book, and in return the second edition of the book described the ANSI standard. It has editions in everything from Finnish to Chinese to Hebrew to Braille. You might also enjoy Dennis Ritchie's history of C.
• Many members of IBM's C and C++ family of products are C99-compliant including VisualAge C++ for AIX Version 6.0, an advanced C/C++ compiler available for AIX and Linux. More details can be found in this announcement from 2002 (in PDF format). Even more details can be found in C for AIX, Version 6.0, C/C++ Language Reference (in PDF).
• Learn more about the standards involved with Unicode and internationalization in "Linux Unicode programming" (developerWorks, August 2001)
• The Dinkum C99 Library Reference Manual is an excellent resource.
• The article Are you Ready For C99? (Kuro5hin, 2001) gives a nice overview of C99.
• Comeau Computing has posted a Tech Talk About C99 with lots of sample code to illustrate new features, from _Bool to _func_ and much more.
• Thomas Wolf has a page of information regarding the ISO standard for the C language. Thomas' page includes a link to his summary of the most important changes in C99, which also chronicles new functions and features and how to use them.
• David R. Tribble's Incompatibilities Between ISO C and ISO C++ discusses those places where C99 and C++98 clash.
• Find more resources for Linux developers in the developerWorks Linux zone.
   

[Aug 12  2003] Simon hates software

 From: Simon Cozens
Date: 12:36 on 12 Aug 2003
Subject: G"C"C

Arthur Bergman:
> it would be fine if it wasn't for the GODAMN ANAL LINKER that AIX uses!

No, it's that gcc is a complete and utter bloody joke. It will compile and link almost anything. It would probably compile Perl without too much modification and wouldn't even emit that many warnings. Look! Look at this!

    *&(int)f = 1;

Is that C? I don't fucking think so. And look at this:

    FILE *
    concat_fopen (char *s1, char *s2, char *mode)
    {
      char str[strlen (s1) + strlen (s2) + 1];
      ...
    }

Yes, that's supposed to be C, not C++, because the things they've done to C++ are almost bloody unspeakable. The words "embrace" and "extend" come to mind. How about this, for instance:

   It is very convenient to have operators which return the "minimum" or the
    "maximum" of two arguments.  In GNU C++ (but not in GNU C), 

    a <? b --  is the minimum, returning the smaller of the numeric values a and b; 
    a >? b --  is the maximum, returning the larger of the numeric values a and b. 

What? What the hell is that about? And you know the worst thing? People actually use these abortions in real code, because obviously, if it compiles on Linux with gcc, it'll compile anywhere. That's why you're having problems linking on AIX - because nobody's even thought about AIX before. We use
autoconf, right, so it must be portable?

Yeah, fucking right. Portable between GNU OSes, I think you'll find.

Part of the reason Parrot 0.0.1 was so slow getting out of the door was because of all these stupid idiots writing GCC "C" and not realizing how completely fucking broken it was.

Of course, number one stupid idiot was myself, but the point remains, dammit!
 

[Sep 24.  2003] Cyclone

A Safe Dialect of C Download! Cyclone Version 0.6 (3.0MB, 24 Sep 2003) Read! the documentation (download) Join! Cyclone mailing lists or send comments Cyclone is mirrored at Cornell and AT&T Labs Research.

Synopsis

Cyclone is a programming language based on C that is safe, meaning that it rules out programs that have buffer overflows, dangling pointers, format string attacks, and so on. High-level, type-safe languages, such as Java, Scheme, or ML also provide safety, but they don't give the same control over data representations and memory management that C does (witness the fact that the run-time systems for these languages are usually written in C.) Furthermore, porting legacy C code to these languages or interfacing with legacy C libraries is a difficult and error-prone process. The goal of Cyclone is to give programmers the same low-level control and performance of C without sacrificing safety, and to make it easy to port or interface with legacy C code.

Cyclone achieves safety while remaining compatible with C by:

• Enforcing type safety (e.g., a cast from t1 to t2 is allowed only if it is safe to view a t1 as a t2)

• Not changing data representation or calling conventions

• Providing region-based, manual memory management

• Using a combination of type information and run-time checks to prevent array-bound violations

• Wrapping the C standard library with appropriate run-time checks as necessary (e.g., has a FILE already been closed)

Cyclone also provides modern features for convenient programming:

• Tagged unions

• ML-style datatypes

• Parametric polymorphism

• Pattern matching

• Exceptions

• Anonymous structs equivalent by structure

• Parameterized typedefs

• An extensive library for container types and other common utilities

• A lexer generator and parser generator

• Function-level debugging with gdb and profiling with gprof

Software Distribution

The Cyclone compiler and tools, as well as some benchmark programs, are freely available for download.

System Requirements:

• Cyclone is currently supported on x86 Linux, and on Windows using Cygwin. Other platforms may or may not work (our install process tries to detect your configuration and automatically create the necessary platform-specific information).  We have had some success on BSD, Irix, and Solaris systems, but your mileage may vary.  In particular, system-dependent behavior is largely untested.

• You need to extract the files from the "gzipped tarball" using gunzip and tar; under Windows, you can also do this with Winzip.

• You need GNU make, a fairly recent version of gcc, a bash or ksh shell, and various common utilities (awk, sed, grep). If you are using Cygwin, all of these come with it. gcc and the utilities must be in your path. Other make programs and C compilers will not work.

• See the file INSTALL in the distribution for details.

Licensing: The files in the distribution come from a variety of sources and so come under a variety of licenses. Please see each file and directory for its licensing terms.

Download Cyclone version 0.6	Download Cyclone documentation
Download Benchmarks version 0.4

Papers

Cyclone: A Safe Dialect of C, Trevor Jim, Greg Morrisett, Dan Grossman, Michael Hicks, James Cheney, and Yanling Wang.  USENIX Annual Technical Conference, pages 275--288, Monterey, CA, June 2002.
PS PDF DVI

Region-based Memory Management in Cyclone, Dan Grossman, Greg Morrisett, Trevor Jim, Michael Hicks, Yanling Wang, and James Cheney.  ACM Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation, pages 282--293, Berlin, Germany, June, 2002.
PS PDF DVI 
Cornell CS Technical Report TR2001-1856 contains the full definition and safety proof for the formal language sketched in the paper: PS PDF DVI 

Safe and Flexible Memory Management in Cyclone, Mike Hicks, Greg Morrisett, Dan Grossman, and Trevor Jim.  University of Maryland Technical Report CS-TR-4514, July 2003. 
This paper describes how we have integrated unique pointers, reference counted objects, and dynamic regions into the language.

More information

Mailing Lists: We have set up three mailing lists for public use:

Go to http://lists.cs.cornell.edu/mailman/listinfo/ to subscribe/unsubscribe, or click the links below to send a message (only list members may submit to Cyclone-l).

• Cyclone-l: public discussion on the Cyclone language

• Cyclone-announce-l: announcements of new code distributions

• Cyclone-bugs-l: for reporting bugs and providing comments

Credits: Cyclone is a joint project of AT&T Labs Research and Greg Morrisett's group at Cornell University; see the Acknowledgments section of the documentation for details. Here are some links to personal web pages:

Trevor Jim
Greg Morrisett
Dan Grossman
James Cheney
Mike Hicks
Mathieu Baudet
Matthew Harris
Yanling Wang

C Elements of Style C Elements of Style was published by M&T books in 1992. An abbrivated copy of the book is presented here. This book covers only the C language and is a bit out dated. However it still contains a lot of good advice. Note: The HTML conversion is not perfect. If you want things nicely formatted, get the PDF version.

Open Watcom - Portable Compilers and Tools

Open Watcom is a joint effort between SciTech Software Inc, Sybase®, and the Open Source development community to maintain and enhance the Sybase Watcom C/C++ and Fortran compiler products. Plans for Open Watcom include porting the compiler to the Linux and FreeBSD platforms, as well as updating the compilers to support the latest C and C++ ANSI standards.

The Open Watcom development team has released version 1.1. You can download the source and binaries here.

To keep up with the latest news, participate in the Open Watcom community

Intel® Compiters

• Intel(R) C++ Compiler for Windows $128.96

• Intel(R) C++ Compiler for Linux free for non-commercial use.

icc The New Intel C Compiler for Linux by Jake Jenkins

Table of Contents:
Overview
The Good
The Bad
Optimization Switches
Performance vs. GCC
Caveats

Overview

Recently, Intel released its newest compilers for C/C++ and Fortran77/90 for the Linux platform. Calling them simply C++ and Fortran Compilers 5.0 does a them bit of disservice. These compilers have been long awaited by developers and it seems the wait has been worth it. Most serious developers on the Intel architecture know that while these processors are capable of performance rivaling that of high end workstation CPU's, making the Intel's peak performance available required the purchase of commercial libraries or hours of tedious assembly coding. This is due to the fact that there exists on every Intel processor since the Pentium III, a special feature known as SSE. SSE is really just a marketing term for the Pentium III and later's high powered floating point unit. SSE is actually composed of 8 128bit registers whose sole purpose is to perform floating point arithmetic. As you will see later in the article, utilizing these extra registers to their fullest potential can lead to tremendous performance increases in applications which make heavy use of floating point calculations.

The Good

Fortunately for those of us who use Linux, the compilers can be had for free for non-commercial use. For Windows users in an academic environment, the cost is relatively low as well at under $100 per user.

Links

Intel

A good benchmark repository

MCSR

[SLL] A small page about the Intel C-C++ compiler

Take a look at http://developer.intel.com/software/products/eval/

Note that Linux products have two links:
    30-day Free Evaluation Software (Includes Support) 
    Non-Commercial Unsupported Software 

I wrote a small document months ago (when there was only available beta
releases) about installing the compiler, but now its outdated (the
non-commercial version doesn't require you to mess with the temible flex
license manager :-)

Small Tip for Debian Potato users: choose the  Red Hat 6.2 on IA-32
Processors, do an apt-get install rpm and you should have no problems
installing it

About the GCC efficiency (or lack of it): All I can say is that much has been
discussed about this issue and the conclusión I most often hear is that GCC
strength is not in the efficency of the generated binary (which is not so bad
in some platforms) but its portability (you can find a gcc _everywhere_).
Haven't tested gcc 3.x yet, but seems that a lot of work has been done in
this subject (anyone here has experiences with the 3.x branch?)

About the fortran compiler: haven't used it, but I'm pretty sure it has full
fortran 95 support (as well as other goodies like openMP).

FTR: The intel compilers (at least the C/C++ one) are based on the KAI
compiler set (take a look at www.kai.com)

Regards
Pedro

Best Practices for Programming in C -- a typical style-related recipes for C without any new insights, but still the paper has a reasonably balanced approach to the topic. As always some tips are questionable. I doubt that  declaration of the counter in the loop (for(int i=0; i<100; i++) array[i]=0;) is a portable construct. A lot of C-compilers will reject this.  As one of Linux Today readers noted "...if you copy things verbatim from others, *including comments* etc, it would be nicer to name the original authors, ie (?) Henry Spencer ('Ten commandments for C programmers') and Robert Pike ('Notes on programming in C'). But this certainly doesn't ever happen in code written by IBM-employees, does it?"

On a positive side they note usefulness goto in organizing breaks from inner loops:

• goto statements

  goto should be used sparingly. The one place where they can be usefully employed is to break out of several levels of switch, for, and while nesting, although the need to do such a thing may indicate that the inner constructs should be broken out into a separate function.

  for (...) { while (...) { ... if (wrong) goto error; } } ... error: print a message

  When a goto is necessary the accompanying label should be alone on a line and either tabbed one stop to the left of the code that follows, or set at the beginning of the line. Both the goto statement and target should be commented to their utility and purpose.

Tech News - CNET.com  Torvalds: What, me worry? (an interview with Linux Torvalds)

Programming in standard C and C++

Dr. Dobb's Journal Interview with Alex Stepanov

Let's consider now why C is a great language. It is commonly believed that C is a hack which was successful because Unix was written in it. I disagree. Over a long period of time computer architectures evolved, not because of some clever people figuring how to evolve architectures---as a matter of fact, clever people were pushing tagged architectures during that period of time---but because of the demands of different programmers to solve real problems. Computers that were able to deal just with numbers evolved into computers with byte-addressable memory, flat address spaces, and pointers. This was a natural evolution reflecting the growing set of problems that people were solving. C, reflecting the genius of Dennis Ritchie, provided a minimal model of the computer that had evolved over 30 years. C was not a quick hack. As computers evolved to handle all kinds of problems, C, being the minimal model of such a computer, became a very powerful language to solve all kinds of problems in different domains very effectively. This is the secret of C's portability: it is the best representation of an abstract computer that we have. Of course, the abstraction is done over the set of real computers, not some imaginary computational devices. Moreover, people could understand the machine model behind C. It is much easier for an average engineer to understand the machine model behind C than the machine model behind Ada or even Scheme. C succeeded because it was doing the right thing, not because of AT&T promoting it or Unix being written with it.

[May. 12, 2003]  ONLamp.com What I Hate About Your Programming Language What I Hate About C

• It's often used inappropriately. Unless I'm writing a kernel, a device driver, a virtual machine, or an interface to a C or C++ library, writing in C is a probably premature optimization.
• Thirty years of growth and patches to the standard library have produced many, many similar functions with similar, terse names. Quick, Unix coders, what are the differences between execl, execlp, execle, execv, and execvp? If you're not using these every day, you'll be hitting man 3 exec whenever you see them.

Unix.se - Interview - Dennis Ritchie

C is declining somewhat in usage compared to C++, and maybe Java, but perhaps even more compared to higher-level scripting languages. It's still fairly strong for the basic system-type things.

Do you agree with Rob Pike's thoughts on the (ir)relevance of systems research? (http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/rob/utah2000.ps)

Dennis Ritchie: Pretty much, although Rob was stating his case in a deliberately provocative way. It's true that compared with the scene when Unix started, today the ecological niches are fairly full, and fresh new OS ideas are harder to come by, or at least to propagate.

Any thoughts about the GNU project? How did you first learn about it?

Dennis Ritchie: I can't remember when I first learned about it, but a long time ago. The True-GNU philosophy is more extreme than I care for, but it certainly laid a foundation for the current scene, as well as providing real software. The interesting thing is the way that free-software ideas have begun to influence major existing commercial players. At the same time, much of it seems to have to do with recreating things we or others had already done; it seems rather derivative intellectually; is there a dearth of really new ideas? But still, it's a great satisfaction that so much of it has built on top of a basis we helped to establish.

Recommended Links

New:

• Open Directory - Computers Programming Languages C
• Yahoo! Computers and InternetProgramming Languages/C and C++
• Programming.c   -  a directory of programming sites. C and C++ are decent. There are also sections for Java, COBOL, Basic, Pascal...

Top:

• Standard C
• C++ Reference
• C Programming Reference
• **** [June 11, 1999] StudyWeb: programming in C  -- a nice collection of education materials with annotations
• **** The Degener C Collection of papers and information on C -- main site in C world. 
  • The Lysator guide to C resources on the Web. A very good site for links on C programming. Highly recommended...
• Programmers Heaven - C C++ Zone - CC++ Links -- good
• C.html -- European page; many useful links. Some unique. 
• C language internet resources
• Douglass Mauro's 'C' Programming Links
• Programming in C and C++ (Cprogramming.com) -- decent
• The C Coders Home Page   -- good collection of links. See also The C Coders Home Page
• The C programmer's pages
• J. Blustein's C Programming Language Resources
  •   If you want to learn C -- Advice I would give to someone who wanted to learn to program in C.
  • Notes about gcc -- some advice for C programmers using the GNU C compiler
  • In Some Useful Technical Books -- a list of books specifically about C (amongst other great books)
  • Versions of the New Testament Errata List - lists of corrections to various printings of the second edition of Kernighan and Ritchie's The C Programming Language
  • Annotations on K&R II -- many notes and clarifications to help you when reading the second edition of Kernighan and Ritchie's The C Programming Language
  • How To Debug C -- Versions: PostScript® and HTML versions of slides I created for a lecture I gave about debugging C programs in 1994
  • In Debugging Tips -- some advice specifically for C programmers
  • Frequent Mistakes in C Programs -- List of common mistakes made by undergrad programmers at UWO. Based on a list of marking codes used in the CompSci department.
  • An Example of Data Encapsulation in C -- a work-in-progress about how you can program in C

Other:

• C/C++ Tools and Their Producers
• Association of C and C++ Users
• Codepage 2.2
• The seebs C Page
• C Language Programming Resources
• Technion C-C++ Programming References -- outdated (1997)
• La página del C - The C Page

See also

• Tcl/Tk
• Algorithms
• Debugging
• C++
• Assembler

Bookshelf

• Tcl  -- is much more interesting to use TCL andC then C++. I feel that to certain extent C++ is a wrong answer to extending C... 
• C++ books
• Compilers and compiler tools
• Algorithms

Tutorials

See also TutorialSearch Two good books on C are available online. So do not waste  time browsing the WEB searching for tutorials -- use www.informit.com and save time.  Believe me it would be difficult to find something even close to the quality of a published book on the WEB, unless this is a WEB variant of a published book ;-).  All reference below are supplementary. You can also try to buy a decent book , actually you can do this for approximately the cost of your monthly WEB access ;-).  As for sites with similar collections of links also LEARN CC++ TODAY - a list of C/C++ tutorials by Vinit Carpenter (old, last updated in 1996),  and CSS Program Web Library; C programming.

• ***** C Programming Notes by Steve Summit -- this is an excellent online course that contains both notes and assignments (Introductory course Assignments.  and Intermediate C Programming Assignments). Very knowledgeable and generous author. Highly recommended if you have K&R book (you should !)

• Chapter about Data structures from Instant C by Ivor Horton

• ***+ C Language Tutorial Coronado Enterprises (shareware); This is more or less honest attempt to create a turotial that can is usable.

• ***+ C Programming www.eskimo.com Contains Introductory C Programming Class Notes by Steve Summit -- Noted to K&R.

These notes are part of the UW Experimental College course on Introductory C Programming. They are based on notes prepared (beginning in Spring, 1995) to supplement the book The C Programming Language, by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, or K&R as the book and its authors are affectionately known. (The second edition was published in 1988 by Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0-13-110362-8.) These notes are now (as of Winter, 1995-6) intended to be stand-alone, although the sections are still cross-referenced to those of K&R, for the reader who wants to pursue a more in-depth exposition.

• **** C Programming   see also Programming in C (Steve Holmes) (Strathclyde, Scotland). -- Unix oriented, redistributable
• The C Programming Language Answers To Exercises -- answers to exersises for a classic book. "The C Programming Language", 2nd edition.
• ***+ Programming in C  by Dave Marshall (Cardiff, Wales). Unix oriented notes. Contains useful exercises. Last updated March 1999. All notes here are copyrighted. Copying etc. is not permitted. Treatment of many topics is somewhat too concise for the beginner..  
• Chapter about pointers  from Practical C Programming (Nutshell Handbook) -- very good chapter -- probably best explanation of pointers available on the net
• *** Introduction to C Programming  by Brian Brown (nz). Not much content. But it contains exercises and interactive tests. 
• C C++ Tutorials - Learn C language today

• ANSI C for Programmers on UNIX Systems by Tim Love, Cambridge University. redistibutable for educational purposes

• C Traps and Pitfalls ps (Andrew Koenig). Also available from C-Style Page