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This makes me think...
This makes me think...
Posted Jun 3, 2004 5:06 UTC (Thu) by etrusco (subscriber, #4227)Parent article: Finding kernel problems automatically
Has there ever been a tentative to push a "hardened C" standard, just C plus strong type-checking?
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This makes me think...
Posted Jun 3, 2004 10:47 UTC (Thu) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link]
Why would you want a version of C with strong-typing? It wouldn't be C anymore; it would probably be no easier to port code from C to new-C than it would to port it to Ada or some other real language with strong typing. If you want Ada, or Java, or Modula-3, or even C++, you know where to find them.
This makes me think...
Posted Jun 3, 2004 23:27 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Except that, with a few preprocessor defines to remove the strong-C keywords, you could compile strong-C on a weak-C compiler. The kernel source code could even be a mix of strong and weak C as it transitions to strong-C over the period of a few years. There are very real benefits to simply extending an existing language -- witness C++.
This makes me think...
Posted Jun 4, 2004 10:38 UTC (Fri) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link]
Yes, witness C++. Part of C++'s problem is that it's an incredible pain to parse correctly (notice that GCC ended up completely rewritting the C++ parser to properly support standard C++.) Part of the reason is that C++ was designed based on the already complex C syntax.Another problem with C++ is that C--especially real world C, but even standard C--and C++ aren't completely compatible either way. Stroustroup had to make a few minor tweaks that lost compatibility to make C++ work right. A strong-C is more than likely going to have a few edge cases where things don't work exactly the same.
To use a few preprocessor defines to remove the strong-C is going to hamstring your efforts; the differences are just not going to be that minimal, and that tightly limits your syntax. What you're asking for is basically the system described in the article, not a new language.
This makes me think...
Posted Jun 3, 2004 11:34 UTC (Thu) by bdixon (subscriber, #1055) [Link]
Yes... It is called MISRA (Motor Industry Software Reliability Association) C and it amounts to many rules asking you to do this and not do that. MISRA C compliance can be checked using static analyzers. For example, rule 33 says that the right hand operand of && or || shall not contain side effects.Some of the MISRA rules, however, may not be compatible with systems programming.
This makes me think...
Posted Jun 3, 2004 15:12 UTC (Thu) by mmarsh (subscriber, #17029) [Link]
You might want to check out http://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/cyclone/ ,as well. It's certainly not a standard, but it's a safe C dialect.