Talk:ANSI C

Useless
What information is here that isn't already covered in a better format at C programming language? I wouldn't be averse to an article on C standards or Variants of the C programming language (corresponding to the German article de:Varianten der Programmiersprache C), but this is just ridiculous. —Keenan Pepper 23:56, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

There is a general, incorrect, belief that ANSI C is a dialect of C. It is simply the name of the document (the C Standard) published by a particular standards organization. The wording in this brief article makes this point and refers people to the main article about C. I agree that the material on uses of the term really belong in a dictionary entry. Derek farn 02:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I've just nominated this article for deletion, proposing to replace it with a redirect to the existing article on the C programming language. --Quuxplusone 03:34, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

The original article, see April versions, simply gave some history of the term ANSI C. This was then morphed into the current version which is a cut down version of what appears in the C programming language article. As such it should be deleted. However, I would like to make an appeal to go back to the original intent of the April article. Derek farn 11:10, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

"Standard C"?
"Standard C" is not to be used in reference to ANSI C. "Standard C" is from the 1st K&R book. &mdash;Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 07:55, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * No, that's just plain wrong. "Standard C" is the C defined by the Standard. K&R1 described "pre-Standard" or "K&R" C. If you really wanted to be misleadingly technical, you could call K&R C "Portable C" because it was (similar to) the C compiled by the Portable C Compiler; but it definitely wasn't "Standard C". (These days, "Standard C" could refer to either ANSI standard C, aka C90, or the C defined by the newer ISO standard, aka C99.) --Quuxplusone 22:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Redirect per Quuxplusone. Akihabara 20:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I had a minor H*ll to find out where the merger discussion about C (programming language) and ANSI C was located. Now being a little hot-ironed, this is how a merger discussion ought to be initiated: How to do it is described in the transcluded documentation in Template:Mergefrom. Rursus 09:27, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) insert a  - the Talk:ANSI C#Merger proposal ascertains a link to the relevant discussion,
 * 2) create the discussion on the relevant talk page (here - this section!),
 * 3) pardon for my hot-ironed mood, don't hesitate to edit Wikipedia.


 * Now my opinion about merging ANSI C into C (programming language): the C article is becoming too big, versus ANSI C is not a language as have been said before. I think that there are good reasons for treating dialects of C in separate articles. The separate dialect articles then should be ANSI C90 and ANSI C98, that treats each dialect in detail, while C (programming language) should treat the C language in general and those dialects superficially. So I propose, the ANSI C is moved to ANSI C90 and its information enhanced by info about that dialect. Rursus 09:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I reverted your most recent change to the merge tag on this page, since it didn't seem to make any sense. (You had changed the template to propose a merger between ANSI C and ANSI C, which was nonsensical. Maybe you meant to do something else; I'm not sure.) I'm not sure what the best course of action is in the case of ANSI C/C (programming language)/The C Programming Language/(anything else?), since I haven't looked at what subject matter all these articles currently deal with.

As for your comments above, by "ANSI C98", did you mean C++? That had an ANSI standard published in 1998. But C++ definitely isn't C, and has its own article. (Back in the C world, there was also a Technical Corrigendum in 1995, and a new ISO standard in 1999, but I wouldn't call either of those "C98". The TC-amended version of C90 is sometimes called "C95", but not often.) And I don't know what "hot-ironed" means, so I can't comment on your hot-ironed mood. :) --Quuxplusone 07:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The C article definitely needs to mention the C standards, and it says about the right amount in that regard. I see no benefit, and considerable harm, in moving its current content concerning that matter into some other aticle.  If anything, "ANSI C" should redirect to the appropriate section of the main C article.— DAGwyn 17:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I oppose merging the ANSI C article, which is short and potentially useful, when you actually need to look up something about ANSI C. (Though better references, e.g., to the standards, would be useful.)  The main C article is, of course, much larger, with a lot of content not directly relevant.
 * —FlashSheridan (talk) 02:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I would also like to see this article kept. As said, the C article is getting pretty big. Besides this article has quite some room for expansion.Vice regent 22:49, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I vote for merging this article with the main C article. It doesn't seem to add anything useful. C is a language and ISO C vs ANSI C.. the difference is, as far as i know, not to be found in normative texts. So after all, they are the same language. I could be informed wrong with that, though. But i still have bad feelings with ANSI C being separate from C main article. I already wondered why "ANSI C" is so small. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.174.196.238 (talk) 02:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

External Links - Link to a list of Draft standards
I had included a link which gives a list of drafts for different C standards, because I thought it would be helpful for those who want to have a look at the standard or get a copy of it easily. But Wrp103 reverted that, and told me that "External links should generally be primary sites; that site seems more like a collection of links". I do not see anything wrong in including that link as they are drafts produced by ANSI/ISO committee, and I have also seen many other articles containing external links to pages which only links and short description. Please let me know your opinion on this.(Avsharath 03:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC))

ANSI 89 and ISO 90
This article said there were some changes to ISO 90 that made it slightly different than ANSI 89.Does anyone know what those differences are? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.127.92.225 (talk) 09:25, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
 * This website implies that  didn't exist until C90. – kentyman (talk) 19:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

C94?
This website mentions a C94, but this article doesn't seem to address it. Does anyone have more information on this standard? – kentyman (talk) 19:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * "C94" or C95 is an amendment of C89. The correct title is ISO/IEC 9899:199409, so it was published in september 1994. --RokerHRO (talk) 13:58, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No, the title as shown on each page of the document is "ISO/IEC 9899:1990/Amendment 1:1995 (E)" or in short form (on pages i-iv and 39-52) "ISO/IEC 9899:1990/Amd. 1:1995 (E)". The front cover gives the date as 1995-04-01.  The 199409 date comes from the __STDC_VERSION__ definition (page 2).  Presumably the final editing of that value in the body of the document was done in 1994, but it was published in 1995. Joseph Myers (talk) 01:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Compilers supporting ANSI C -- LLVM's Clang?
AFAICT Clang aims to be standards-compliant as we, so might add it to the list of standards-compliant compilers. --84.62.226.16 (talk) 22:02, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

'Citation needed' not needed
Why do you need a citation for "long and arduous process" for a process that began in 1983 and ended in 1989, the end result of which was a document that standardised a major programming language to the satisfaction of all parties? Six years is a long time on a human scale - almost a tenth of a lifetime - regardless of whether someone has written down in a book that "six years is a long time". The fact that the process was arduous can be deduced from the quality of the product. Nothing that good comes easy [citation needed]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.239.123.184 (talk) 09:29, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Subject of article
What is this article about? Is it about [the road to] ANSI C89/ISO C90, as the first few words (and the "summary" in C (programming language)) seem to indicate, or is it about all C standards, as the rest of the article seems to indicate?

If it's about C standards in general, I don't get why it's called "ANSI C" rather than "ISO C", or indeed why it's not just part of C (programming language); ANSI C really isn't used to refer to the later standards except insofar as they are compatible with the original standard and different from the traditional "K&R" dialects.

If it's about C89/C90 [and the process of creating the standard], there's a lot of extraneous material (starting with the C99 section) in this article that should be [re]moved.

Either way, the supposed summary at C (programming language) actually has a lot of material that is missing from this article. &mdash;SamB (talk) 21:41, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

TC1/TC2
Why is there no mention of Technical Corrigendums? Those were legal changes of the standard. See here:

http://c-faq.com/ansi/ansi1.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.207.5.51 (talk) 04:19, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
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