StandardC

StandardC is the standardized form of the C programming language, defined by ISO/IEC 9899. It provides a portable, cross-platform subset of C with a formal specification of its syntax, semantics, and library interfaces. The terms Standard C and ISO C are commonly used interchangeably.

History and standardization: The language originated from Bell Labs in the 1970s and was formalized as ANSI C in 1989, later adopted internationally as ISO/IEC 9899. The standard has evolved through revisions such as C99, C11, and C18, each expanding features while preserving backward compatibility.

Core language features: StandardC maintains C’s procedural, low‑level capabilities, including pointers and manual memory management, while introducing a richer type system and syntax refinements. Notable features added over editions include inline functions, designated initializers, flexible array members (C99), the _Generic keyword (C11), and other type- and macro-related enhancements.

Standard library and portability: The standard library provides headers for input/output, memory management, strings, mathematics, and more recent modules such as stdint.h, stdbool.h, stdatomic.h, and threads.h in later revisions. Compiler implementations (GCC, Clang, MSVC) support StandardC across operating systems and embedded environments, enabling portable code bases.

Usage and ecosystem: StandardC remains widely used in systems programming, operating systems, embedded systems, and performance-critical software. Its maturity, broad toolchains, and emphasis on explicit memory management contribute to its ongoing relevance, despite challenges related to undefined behavior and portability caveats.