On the C99 Status

On the C99 Status

[Paulo J. Matos]

From http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.3/c99status.html , I see several
features are still missing from gcc to fully adhere to the C99
standard.

Those worth mentioning for me are complex support and variable length
arrays, still there are other either missing or broken. This is of
interest to me because I tend to try to follow standards so I usually
compile my programs with -std=c99.
Now, I wonder why after so many years of having a standard out, why
there's still some c99 features missing.
I can only imagine that there isn't too much incentive into
implementing the missing features. The other possibility is that gcc,
as a big software beast, is getting so big that adding completely new
features might be quite hard... anyway, this is just me thinking out
loud.
I would like to hear what the current issue is with adding the missing
features to gcc if anyone cares to explain.

Cheers,

-- 
Paulo Jorge Matos - pocm at soton.ac.uk
http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/pocm
PhD Student @ ECS
University of Southampton, UK
Sponsor ECS runners - Action against Hunger:
http://www.justgiving.com/ecsrunslikethewind

Re: On the C99 Status

[Martin Krischik]

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Am Samstag 22 März 2008 schrieb Paulo J. Matos:

> The other possibility is that gcc,
> as a big software beast, is getting so big that adding completely new
> features might be quite hard... 

I thing this is close - but in a much grander scale - Most of the other 
available C compiler don't have C99 support either.

I think that C as a language is getting such a big language beast on such 
small foundations that adding completely new features is be quite hard. This 
is what you get when you build on to weak foundations.

Note that the features you mentioned have been available for in - in for 
example Ada - for over ten  years (complex numbers ) or 20 years (variable 
length arrays) now - and they have been implemented by the compiler vendors.

I mention Ada because this is where good foundation come into play. When Ada 
came out it was dismissed for been to heavy and difficult - while C was so 
light and elegant.

Now 20 years later and see what happened: The Ada front end of GCC 4.3 
implements Ada 2007 in full - only a year after the standard was finalised 
while the C front end - with a lot lot more maintainers  working on - still 
has not got C99 implemented - That's 8 years late! And ISO standards are 
renewed every 10 years - so C 2009 should be around the corner now.

As I said: the foundations of C are to weak (Read an original first printing 
K&R to see what I mean) - they can not hold and more features. 

Martin

-- 
Martin Krischik
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net

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Re: On the C99 Status

[Luke A. Guest]

On Sat, 2008-03-22 at 18:24 +0100, Martin Krischik wrote:

> Note that the features you mentioned have been available for in - in for 
> example Ada - for over ten  years (complex numbers ) or 20 years (variable 
> length arrays) now - and they have been implemented by the compiler vendors.
> 
> I mention Ada because this is where good foundation come into play. When Ada 
> came out it was dismissed for been to heavy and difficult - while C was so 
> light and elegant.
> 
> Now 20 years later and see what happened: The Ada front end of GCC 4.3 
> implements Ada 2007 in full - only a year after the standard was finalised 

I'm not convinced that's true, in mine and other peoples tests, the
interfaces of Ada 2005 still does not work in Ada. I've yet to test
4.3.0 but I've been informed that they don't work properly in the
previous beta.

Luke.

Re: On the C99 Status

[Martin Krischik]

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Am Samstag 22 März 2008 schrieb Luke A. Guest:
> On Sat, 2008-03-22 at 18:24 +0100, Martin Krischik wrote:
> > Note that the features you mentioned have been available for in - in for
> > example Ada - for over ten  years (complex numbers ) or 20 years
> > (variable length arrays) now - and they have been implemented by the
> > compiler vendors.
> >
> > I mention Ada because this is where good foundation come into play. When
> > Ada came out it was dismissed for been to heavy and difficult - while C
> > was so light and elegant.
> >
> > Now 20 years later and see what happened: The Ada front end of GCC 4.3
> > implements Ada 2007 in full - only a year after the standard was
> > finalised
>
> I'm not convinced that's true, in mine and other peoples tests, the
> interfaces of Ada 2005 still does not work in Ada. I've yet to test
> 4.3.0 but I've been informed that they don't work properly in the
> previous beta.

Well, there are allways bugs - even in Ada. But at least there is movement and 
the will and the ability to implement new features. While in C even features 
like complex numbers  which *should* simple to implement stay on the to-do 
list for years.

Martin
-- 
Martin Krischik
Mädergutstr. 53
CH-3018 Bern
Tel.   +41-31-981-22-38
Mobil: +41-76-516-51-02
mailto://Martin@krischik.com
http://www.krischik.com

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