INCITS Subgroup Annual Report

in050400 - Annual Report for: J11

Covering the Period from April 2004 to May 2005

Title of INCITS Subgroup: Programming Language C

Links:

  
Informal Description of Work: Standardization of the C computer programming language. J11 holds co-located meetings with, and is the TAG for, SC22/WG14.

1. Executive Summary

J11 assisted SC22/WG14 with the on-going processing of Defect Reports for ISO C (known informally as C99) and the preparation of three Technical Reports:
  1. Type 2 Technical Report on Secure C Library Functions. This report describes new library functions that guard against buffer overrun attacks against systems programs. The functions also promote less error prone code in general programs.
  2. Type 2 Technical Report on Extensions for the programming language C to support decimal floating point arithmetic. This report describes new floating-point types with a decimal radix and the operations on those types.
  3. Type 2 Technical Report on Extensions for the Standard Library of the Programming Language C to Support Mathematical Special Functions. This report describes additional math functions for the C library, such as Bessel functions.

All work has occurred on schedule with a minimum of controversy.

2. Significant Accomplishments

Type 2 Technical Report on Secure C Library Functions has passed the ISO registration ballot.

Type 2 Technical Report on C Extensions to Support Embedded Processors has been approved.

Type 2 Technical Report on Additional Character Data Types to the Programming Language C has been approved.

Technical Corrigendum 2 for ISO/IEC 9899: 1999, Programming Language - C has been approved.

3. Significant Challenges

Work has been uneventful and has proceeded at a smooth pace in a timely fashion. No significant controversy is expected.

4. Expected Challenges

The work on adding secure functions to the C Library has generated great interest, and the registration ballot comments contained requests to add more functions (particularly functions that return pointers to dynamically allocated results). The committee might request a new work item to produce a second TR specifying such functions.

In general, the committee is expected to continue work on the TRs described above.

5. Committee Activities

a. Previous Year's Meetings:

Date Location
October 25-29, 2004 Redmond, WA
April 4-8, 2005 Lillehammer, Norway

b. Next Year's Planned Meetings:

Date Location
September 25-28, 2005 Mont Trembant, Quebec, Canada
Late March/Early April, 2006 Berlin Germany

The SC22/WG14 website contains more detailed information about meetings. Sometimes meeting announcements first appear in committee mailings before the meeting web page is updated.

To best utilize the considerable technical expertise available in J11, J11 and SC22/WG14 will continue to hold co-located meetings. Every other meeting will be located in either North America or the United States.

6. Liaison Activities

SC22/WG14 (ISO C): assist with revision of C standard.

J16: coordinate issues common to C/C++. A number of organizations have joint membership in J11 and J16. When the organization is willing, J11 appoints each representative of such organizations as a liaisons to J16 to insure close communication.

7. Membership and Officers

a. Officers:

Chair
Randy Meyers
rmeyers@ix.netcom.com
Silverhill Systems Inc.
4025 Gumwood LN
Knoxville, TN 37921-1364
Last trained: August 6, 2002.

Vice-Chair
Fred Tydeman
tydeman@tybor.com
Tydeman Consulting
1137 Harbour Cove Court
Sparks, NV 89434
Last trained: --

International Representative
Douglas Walls
douglas.walls@sun.com
Sun Microsystems
M/S UMPK16-303
901 San Antonio Road
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Last trained: May 16, 2002

Vocabulary Representative
Open.

b. Membership:
The committee's membership has been fairly stable with many representatives of long tenure.

The membership list is available.

8. Future Trends and Related Technical Activities

The C Programming Language continues to be one of the most economically important programming languages. After a slow start, various vendors are picking up features from IS 9899:1999, and many UNIX vendors offer conforming implementations. The Open Group's Single UNIX Specification Version 3 requires C99 for non-minimal conformance.

C++ and Java have reduced the pressure for new features in C, and increased the desire for C to remain stable with few disruptions that could affect its very large code base.

To that end, the committee thinks that the 1999 Standard should be reaffirmed, and that at this time, further evolution of the language should be through type 2 technical reports that target specific concerns of the marketplace.

9. Other Administrative Information

No issues.