OH4 - ansi c

Low-level programming langauge originally part of Unix.

C is the lingua franca of the software world as so much is written in it. Any serious programmer should have significant familiarity with C.

C is worth learning as an aid to thinking about problems at the hardware and operating system levels - though it is still an abstract machine on top of the real hardware.

Style

ANSI C89 compliant code is preferred for portability. Here are a few standard conventions:

General

use /* */ comment pairs, never //
no tabs, expand to spaces. 2 spaces per indentation level
no whitespace after the keywords if, for, and while.
no braces around single-line blocks (e.g., if, for, and while bodies)
integer valued functions return -1 on error, 0 or positive on success
enum and #defineed constants should be UPPERCASE
struct tags are Underscore_Capitalized, with matching typedefs
function and variable names are compact like krninit when possible, underscore_lowercased when clarity demands
automatic variables (local variables inside a function) are never initialized at declaration
don't write !strcmp (or !memcmp, etc.); always explicitly compare the result fo string or memory comparison with zero
include files should not include other files (prevents circular dependencies and keeps compilation fast)

Comments

Code should be readable and require few comments. Functions should have a line or two comment above explaining their purpose (even if redundant, as the purpose may not always be clear to others).
Every field of a struct should have a corresponding comment
Low-level code should be verbosely commented and when possible include links to reference materials. This can prevent a lot of wasteful churn between code, reference materials, and search engines when reading.

Libraries

The C language does not provide a library system for larger-scale code reuse. However, one powerful - the single header file library - has emerged as an excellent way to integrate with and manage dependencies. Single header file libraries are our preferred method for sharing and reusing code across projects.

incoming(1): web

Last update on 7E4C11, edited 3 times. 3/3thh