Ask HN: How can I ensure that my C code adheres to the ANSI standard?

2 points

user200783

10 years ago

I am aware of some C projects, such as the original implementation of the Lua programming language [1], that try very hard to ensure their code strictly adheres to the ANSI C standard. Lua steps outside the ANSI standard only where the developers have intentionally chosen to do so, and where there is an alternative, standard-compliant code path. This allows, by enabling these alternative code paths, for Lua to be built using any standard-compliant compiler.

Other projects seem to take a more relaxed approach, violating the standard and making use of compiler-specific language extensions liberally and even unintentionally.

My C code to date has been firmly in the second camp. However, for an upcoming project I would like to be more disciplined and write only standard-compliant code (or only use extensions by choice, where they are both necessary and safe). This will improve the portability of my code and also its correctness - I hope to avoid repeating my recent experience of code silently failing to work due to a standard violation (in this case, of the definition of "constant expression" - see my Stack Overflow question [2]).

What tools/techniques would you recommend to avoid violating the ANSI C standard and to ensure I am writing strictly standard-compliant code?

[1] https://www.lua.org/

[2] http://stackoverflow.com/q/39917921/200783