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56-519: For technical reasons , "Visual C#" redirects here. Visual C may refer to: Visual C++ , an integrated development environment (IDE) product from Microsoft for the C, C++, and C++/CLI programming languages Visual C Sharp , Microsoft's implementation of the C# specification, included in the Microsoft Visual Studio suite of product Topics referred to by

112-452: A certain platform or with a particular compiler, due, for example, to the use of non-standard libraries, such as GUI libraries, or to a reliance on compiler- or platform-specific attributes such as the exact size of data types and byte endianness . In cases where code must be compilable by either standard-conforming or K&R C-based compilers, the __STDC__ macro can be used to split the code into Standard and K&R sections to prevent

168-536: A later date. In version 17.5, partial (since atomic locks are missing) and experimental (meaning hidden behind the compiler flag /experimental:c11atomics ) support for atomics was added and in version 17.8, support for threads was added, this time not behind a compiler flag. With default settings MSVC does not do two-phase name lookup which prevents it from flagging a wide range of invalid code. Most checks are deferred to template instantiation. More recent versions remedy this behavior, but it needs to be enabled by

224-590: A semicolon; as a side effect of the evaluation, functions may be called and variables assigned new values. To modify the normal sequential execution of statements, C provides several control-flow statements identified by reserved keywords. Structured programming is supported by if ... [ else ] conditional execution and by do ... while , while , and for iterative execution (looping). The for statement has separate initialization, testing, and reinitialization expressions, any or all of which can be omitted. break and continue can be used within

280-405: A stable ABI, and binaries built with these versions can be mixed in a forwards-compatible manner, noting the following restrictions: Visual C++ ships with different versions of C runtime libraries. This means users can compile their code with any of the available libraries. However, this can cause some problems when using different components ( DLLs , EXEs ) in the same program. A typical example

336-423: A warning message if a local function was called with the wrong number of arguments, or if different calls to an external function used different numbers or types of arguments. Separate tools such as Unix's lint utility were developed that (among other things) could check for consistency of function use across multiple source files. In the years following the publication of K&R C, several features were added to

392-589: A wide variety of mainframe computers , minicomputers , and microcomputers , including the IBM PC , as its popularity began to increase significantly. In 1983 the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) formed a committee, X3J11, to establish a standard specification of C. X3J11 based the C standard on the Unix implementation; however, the non-portable portion of the Unix C library was handed off to

448-514: Is a program using different libraries . The user should use the same C Run-Time for all the program's components unless the implications are understood. Microsoft recommends using the multithreaded , dynamic link library (/MD or /MDd compiler option) to avoid possible problems. Although Microsoft's CRT implements a large subset of POSIX interfaces, the Visual C++ compiler will emit a warning on every use of such functions by default. The rationale

504-494: Is an imperative , procedural language in the ALGOL tradition. It has a static type system . In C, all executable code is contained within subroutines (also called "functions", though not in the sense of functional programming ). Function parameters are passed by value, although arrays are passed as pointers , i.e. the address of the first item in the array. Pass-by-reference is simulated in C by explicitly passing pointers to

560-505: Is an accepted version of this page C ( pronounced / ˈ s iː / – like the letter c ) is a general-purpose programming language . It was created in the 1970s by Dennis Ritchie and remains very widely used and influential. By design, C's features cleanly reflect the capabilities of the targeted CPUs. It has found lasting use in operating systems code (especially in kernels ), device drivers , and protocol stacks , but its use in application software has been decreasing. C

616-451: Is an informal name for the current major C language standard revision. It was informally known as "C2X" through most of its development. C23 was published in October 2024 as ISO/IEC 9899:2024. The standard macro __STDC_VERSION__ is defined as 202311L to indicate that C23 support is available. C2Y is an informal name for the next major C language standard revision, after C23 (C2X), that

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672-456: Is commonly used on computer architectures that range from the largest supercomputers to the smallest microcontrollers and embedded systems . A successor to the programming language B , C was originally developed at Bell Labs by Ritchie between 1972 and 1973 to construct utilities running on Unix . It was applied to re-implementing the kernel of the Unix operating system. During the 1980s, C gradually gained popularity. It has become one of

728-497: Is defined as 201112L to indicate that C11 support is available. C17 is an informal name for ISO/IEC 9899:2018, a standard for the C programming language published in June 2018. It introduces no new language features, only technical corrections, and clarifications to defects in C11. The standard macro __STDC_VERSION__ is defined as 201710L to indicate that C17 support is available. C23

784-561: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Visual C%2B%2B Many applications require redistributable Visual C++ runtime library packages to function correctly. These packages are frequently installed separately from the applications they support, enabling multiple applications to use the package with only a single installation. These Visual C++ redistributable and runtime packages are mostly installed for standard libraries that many applications use. The predecessor to Visual C++

840-440: Is especially the case for STL containers, where container sizes have varied a lot between compiler releases. Microsoft therefore recommends against using C++ interfaces at module boundaries when one wants to enable client code compiled using a different compiler version. Instead of C++, Microsoft recommends using C or COM interfaces, which are designed to have a stable ABI between compiler releases. All 14.x MSVC releases have

896-516: Is for the most part backward compatible with C90, but is stricter in some ways; in particular, a declaration that lacks a type specifier no longer has int implicitly assumed. A standard macro __STDC_VERSION__ is defined with value 199901L to indicate that C99 support is available. GCC , Solaris Studio , and other C compilers now support many or all of the new features of C99. The C compiler in Microsoft Visual C++ , however, implements

952-464: Is hoped to be released later in the 2020s decade, hence the '2' in "C2Y". An early working draft of C2Y was released in February 2024 as N3220 by the working group ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 /WG14. Historically, embedded C programming requires non-standard extensions to the C language to support exotic features such as fixed-point arithmetic , multiple distinct memory banks , and basic I/O operations. In 2008,

1008-622: Is now also referred to as C78 . The second edition of the book covers the later ANSI C standard, described below. K&R introduced several language features: Even after the publication of the 1989 ANSI standard, for many years K&R C was still considered the " lowest common denominator " to which C programmers restricted themselves when maximum portability was desired, since many older compilers were still in use, and because carefully written K&R C code can be legal Standard C as well. In early versions of C, only functions that return types other than int must be declared if used before

1064-420: Is sometimes called C90. Therefore, the terms "C89" and "C90" refer to the same programming language. ANSI, like other national standards bodies, no longer develops the C standard independently, but defers to the international C standard, maintained by the working group ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 /WG14. National adoption of an update to the international standard typically occurs within a year of ISO publication. One of

1120-454: Is that C and C++ standards require an underscore prefix before implementation-defined interfaces, so the use of these functions are non-standard. However, systems that are actually POSIX-compliant would not accept these underscored names, and it is more portable to just turn off the warning instead. Although the product originated as an IDE for the C programming language, for many years the compiler's support for that language conformed only to

1176-578: The IEEE working group 1003 to become the basis for the 1988 POSIX standard. In 1989, the C standard was ratified as ANSI X3.159-1989 "Programming Language C". This version of the language is often referred to as ANSI C , Standard C, or sometimes C89. In 1990 the ANSI C standard (with formatting changes) was adopted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as ISO/IEC 9899:1990, which

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1232-574: The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). C is an imperative procedural language, supporting structured programming , lexical variable scope , and recursion , with a static type system . It was designed to be compiled to provide low-level access to memory and language constructs that map efficiently to machine instructions , all with minimal runtime support . Despite its low-level capabilities,

1288-483: The C Standards Committee published a technical report extending the C language to address these issues by providing a common standard for all implementations to adhere to. It includes a number of features not available in normal C, such as fixed-point arithmetic, named address spaces, and basic I/O hardware addressing. C has a formal grammar specified by the C standard. Line endings are generally not significant in C; however, line boundaries do have significance during

1344-591: The C89 standard and those parts of C99 that are required for compatibility with C++11 . In addition, the C99 standard requires support for identifiers using Unicode in the form of escaped characters (e.g. \u0040 or \U0001f431 ) and suggests support for raw Unicode names. Work began in 2007 on another revision of the C standard, informally called "C1X" until its official publication of ISO/IEC 9899:2011 on December 8, 2011. The C standards committee adopted guidelines to limit

1400-515: The C99 support, with full support of the C99 Standard Library, except for features that require C99 language features not yet supported by the compiler. Most of the changes from the C11 revision of the standard were still not supported by Visual C++ 2017. For example, generic selections via the _Generic keyword are not supported by the compiler and result in a syntax error. The preprocessor

1456-438: The adoption of new features that had not been tested by existing implementations. The C11 standard adds numerous new features to C and the library, including type generic macros, anonymous structures, improved Unicode support, atomic operations, multi-threading, and bounds-checked functions. It also makes some portions of the existing C99 library optional, and improves compatibility with C++. The standard macro __STDC_VERSION__

1512-428: The aims of the C standardization process was to produce a superset of K&R C, incorporating many of the subsequently introduced unofficial features. The standards committee also included several additional features such as function prototypes (borrowed from C++), void pointers, support for international character sets and locales , and preprocessor enhancements. Although the syntax for parameter declarations

1568-416: The basis for several implementations of C on new platforms. In 1978 Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie published the first edition of The C Programming Language . Known as K&R from the initials of its authors, the book served for many years as an informal specification of the language. The version of C that it describes is commonly referred to as " K&R C ". As this was released in 1978, it

1624-400: The command-line option /permissive- . Describing it as "excellent", BYTE in February 1989 approved of Microsoft C 5.1's OS/2 support, QuickC for interactive development, and CodeView debugger. Although Watcom C produced slightly faster code, the magazine said that developers "might still prefer Microsoft's friendlier and more powerful tools". C (programming language) This

1680-537: The compiler. An example of _MSC_VER is 1933 to represent version 19.33 of the Microsoft C/C++ compiler, and of _MSC_FULL_VER is 193331630. The Visual product version, such as "17.3.4", designates the version of Visual Studio with which version 19.33 of the compiler was packaged. Then there is the Microsoft Visual C/C++ Runtime Library version, e.g. "14.3". From this, one can also deduce

1736-476: The early Microsoft C compiler days. This is the version returned by running the command cl.exe on its own without any options. By taking two digits after the decimal and dropping the decimal point, this also becomes the value of the C pre-processor macro: _MSC_VER , and the CMake variable: MSVC_VERSION . A longer version of the C macro is _MSC_FULL_VER to make more finely-grained distinctions between builds of

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1792-643: The features of the more-powerful PDP-11. A significant addition was a character data type. He called this New B (NB). Thompson started to use NB to write the Unix kernel, and his requirements shaped the direction of the language development. Through to 1972, richer types were added to the NB language: NB had arrays of int and char . Pointers, the ability to generate pointers to other types, arrays of all types, and types to be returned from functions were all also added. Arrays within expressions became pointers. A new compiler

1848-473: The function definition; functions used without prior declaration were presumed to return type int . For example: The int type specifiers which are commented out could be omitted in K&;R C, but are required in later standards. Since K&R function declarations did not include any information about function arguments, function parameter type checks were not performed, although some compilers would issue

1904-448: The language was designed to encourage cross-platform programming. A standards -compliant C program written with portability in mind can be compiled for a wide variety of computer platforms and operating systems with few changes to its source code. Since 2000, C has consistently ranked among the top four languages in the TIOBE index , a measure of the popularity of programming languages. C

1960-438: The language, supported by compilers from AT&T (in particular PCC ) and some other vendors. These included: The large number of extensions and lack of agreement on a standard library , together with the language popularity and the fact that not even the Unix compilers precisely implemented the K&R specification, led to the necessity of standardization. During the late 1970s and 1980s, versions of C were implemented for

2016-413: The loop. Break is used to leave the innermost enclosing loop statement and continue is used to skip to its reinitialisation. There is also a non-structured goto statement which branches directly to the designated label within the function. switch selects a case to be executed based on the value of an integer expression. Different from many other languages, control-flow will fall through to

2072-425: The most widely used programming languages, with C compilers available for practically all modern computer architectures and operating systems. The book The C Programming Language , co-authored by the original language designer, served for many years as the de facto standard for the language. C has been standardized since 1989 by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and, subsequently, jointly by

2128-411: The next case unless terminated by a break . Expressions can use a variety of built-in operators and may contain function calls. The order in which arguments to functions and operands to most operators are evaluated is unspecified. The evaluations may even be interleaved. However, all side effects (including storage to variables) will occur before the next " sequence point "; sequence points include

2184-419: The operating system to a PDP-11 . The original PDP-11 version of Unix was also developed in assembly language. Thompson wanted a programming language for developing utilities for the new platform. He first tried writing a Fortran compiler, but he soon gave up the idea and instead created a cut-down version of the recently developed systems programming language called BCPL . The official description of BCPL

2240-472: The original edition of the C standard , dating from 1989, but not the C99 revision of the standard. There had been no plans to support C99 even in 2011, more than a decade after its publication. Visual C++ 2013 finally added support for various C99 features in its C mode (including designated initializers, compound literals, and the _Bool type), though it was still not complete. Visual C++ 2015 further improved

2296-652: The preprocessing phase. Comments may appear either between the delimiters /* and */ , or (since C99) following // until the end of the line. Comments delimited by /* and */ do not nest, and these sequences of characters are not interpreted as comment delimiters if they appear inside string or character literals. C source files contain declarations and function definitions. Function definitions, in turn, contain declarations and statements . Declarations either define new types using keywords such as struct , union , and enum , or assign types to and perhaps reserve storage for new variables, usually by writing

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2352-408: The recognizable expression and statement syntax of C with underlying type systems, data models, and semantics that can be radically different. The origin of C is closely tied to the development of the Unix operating system, originally implemented in assembly language on a PDP-7 by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson , incorporating several ideas from colleagues. Eventually, they decided to port

2408-412: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Visual C . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Visual_C&oldid=696161384 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

2464-415: The thing being referenced. C program source text is free-form code. Semicolons terminate statements , while curly braces are used to group statements into blocks . The C language also exhibits the following characteristics: While C does not include certain features found in other languages (such as object orientation and garbage collection ), these can be implemented or emulated, often through

2520-521: The toolset version, which can be obtained by taking the first three digits of the runtime library version and dropping the decimal, e.g. "143". It includes the Visual C/C++ runtime library, as well as compilers, linkers, assemblers, other build tools, and matching libraries and header files. The following is a (scrapeable) table of the known correlated version numbers. The Visual C++ compiler ABI has historically changed between major compiler releases. This

2576-468: The type followed by the variable name. Keywords such as char and int specify built-in types. Sections of code are enclosed in braces ( { and } , sometimes called "curly brackets") to limit the scope of declarations and to act as a single statement for control structures. As an imperative language, C uses statements to specify actions. The most common statement is an expression statement , consisting of an expression to be evaluated, followed by

2632-472: The urging of Alan Snyder and also in recognition of the usefulness of the file-inclusion mechanisms available in BCPL and PL/I . Its original version provided only included files and simple string replacements: #include and #define of parameterless macros. Soon after that, it was extended, mostly by Mike Lesk and then by John Reiser, to incorporate macros with arguments and conditional compilation . Unix

2688-703: The use of external libraries (e.g., the GLib Object System or the Boehm garbage collector ). Many later languages have borrowed directly or indirectly from C, including C++ , C# , Unix's C shell , D , Go , Java , JavaScript (including transpilers ), Julia , Limbo , LPC , Objective-C , Perl , PHP , Python , Ruby , Rust , Swift , Verilog and SystemVerilog (hardware description languages). These languages have drawn many of their control structures and other basic features from C. Most of them also express highly similar syntax to C, and they tend to combine

2744-531: The use on a K&R C-based compiler of features available only in Standard C. After the ANSI/ISO standardization process, the C language specification remained relatively static for several years. In 1995, Normative Amendment 1 to the 1990 C standard (ISO/IEC 9899/AMD1:1995, known informally as C95) was published, to correct some details and to add more extensive support for international character sets. The C standard

2800-510: Was augmented to include the style used in C++, the K&R interface continued to be permitted, for compatibility with existing source code. C89 is supported by current C compilers, and most modern C code is based on it. Any program written only in Standard C and without any hardware-dependent assumptions will run correctly on any platform with a conforming C implementation, within its resource limits. Without such precautions, programs may compile only on

2856-463: Was called Microsoft C/C++ . There was also a Microsoft QuickC 2.5 and a Microsoft QuickC for Windows 1.0. The Visual C++ compiler is still known as Microsoft C/C++ and as of the release of Visual C++ 2015 Update 2, is on version 14.0.23918.0. There are several different version numbers to consider when working with Visual C or C++. The oldest and most original of these is the compiler version number, which has been monotonically increased since

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2912-706: Was further revised in the late 1990s, leading to the publication of ISO/IEC 9899:1999 in 1999, which is commonly referred to as " C99 ". It has since been amended three times by Technical Corrigenda. C99 introduced several new features, including inline functions , several new data types (including long long int and a complex type to represent complex numbers ), variable-length arrays and flexible array members , improved support for IEEE 754 floating point, support for variadic macros (macros of variable arity ), and support for one-line comments beginning with // , as in BCPL or C++. Many of these had already been implemented as extensions in several C compilers. C99

2968-511: Was not available at the time, and Thompson modified the syntax to be less 'wordy' and similar to a simplified ALGOL known as SMALGOL. He called the result B , describing it as "BCPL semantics with a lot of SMALGOL syntax". Like BCPL, B had a bootstrapping compiler to facilitate porting to new machines. Ultimately, few utilities were written in B because it was too slow and could not take advantage of PDP-11 features such as byte addressability. In 1971 Ritchie started to improve B, to use

3024-612: Was one of the first operating system kernels implemented in a language other than assembly . Earlier instances include the Multics system (which was written in PL/I ) and Master Control Program (MCP) for the Burroughs B5000 (which was written in ALGOL ) in 1961. In around 1977, Ritchie and Stephen C. Johnson made further changes to the language to facilitate portability of the Unix operating system. Johnson's Portable C Compiler served as

3080-740: Was overhauled in 2018, with C11 in sight: Full C11 conformance is on our roadmap, and updating the preprocessor is just the first step in that process. The C11 _Generic feature is not actually part of the preprocessor, so it has not yet been implemented. When implemented I expect the feature to work independently of if the traditional or updated preprocessor logic is used. _Generic support has been committed to MSVC as of February 2020. In September 2020, Microsoft announced C11 and C17 standards support in MSVC would arrive in version 16.8. This did not include optional features but Microsoft indicated that they were planning to add support for atomics and threads at

3136-520: Was written, and the language was renamed C. The C compiler and some utilities made with it were included in Version 2 Unix , which is also known as Research Unix . At Version 4 Unix , released in November 1973, the Unix kernel was extensively re-implemented in C. By this time, the C language had acquired some powerful features such as struct types. The preprocessor was introduced around 1973 at

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