Visual C++ Express Edition or lcc-win32?

[Nimmi Srivastav]

Apologies if my cross posting has offended anyone....

For a pure hobbyist C/C++ programmer, who wants to develop
applications to run on Windows, what would be a better choice to
install: Visual C++ Express 2005 Edition or lcc-win32? Does anyone
have any opinion to share?

Also, is there a C++ compiler akin to lcc-win32?

Thanks,
Nimmi

[Jerry Coffin]

In article <11*********************@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups. com>,
ja*********@gmail.com says...

[ ... ]

Perhaps I didn't really express myself clearly. From what I
understand (and I could easily be mistaken---I don't follow
developments under Windows very closely), Microsoft only
commercializes a C++ compiler system. That compiler system does
compile some C, for reasons of backwards compatibility, or
interfacing existing systems, or whatever, but it is not sold as
a conforming C compiler, and it makes no attempt to be
conforming. In sum, it's like the bundled C compiler in the
final versions of Sun OS 4.x.

That's incorrect (or at least misleading). Microsoft's compiler runs in
two different modes, one as a C compiler and the other as a C++
compiler. In C mode, it has quite good conformance up through C95, but
little of what was added in C99 is supported. It attempts to conform
quite closely with those standards, and succeeds about as well as most
(i.e. I've seen a few bugs in its implementation, but while I haven't
kept a log of them, I don't recall them being particularly problematic
or frequently encountered).

--
Later,
Jerry.

The universe is a figment of its own imagination.

[Chris Hills]

In article <46***************@yahoo.com>, CBFalconer
<cb********@yahoo.comwrites

>Chris Hills wrote:

>>

... snip ...

>>
The MISRA-C team has to make a decision: should it move from
Referencing C95 (9899:1990+A1+RC1+TC2) to referencing C99 for
the next MISRA-C?

In the real world (especially embedded, safety-critical and
high-integrity circles) there are no C99 compilers in use as on
September 2007. There are a lot that are C95+.

Any thoughts from anyone involved in writing compilers? Either to
the NG or to my email address. Yes, I have asked most of the
main embedded compiler companies I have contacts for (about 15 of
them so far) .

Since the C99 standard is easily available, and the C90 is not,

Both are readily availible

I
think MISRA should switch.

I was looking for technical reasons

>Their recommended practices can be used
to eliminate C99 features that are not widely implemented.

Good point

The GNU
C99 report should be an excellent guide.

GNU? Now I thought they had their own version of C.

BTW where do I get this report?

--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ ch***@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

[Richard Heathfield]

Chris Hills said:

In article <46***************@yahoo.com>, CBFalconer
<cb********@yahoo.comwrites

<snip>

>The GNU C99 report should be an excellent guide.

GNU? Now I thought they had their own version of C.

BTW where do I get this report?

I would guess that Chuck is referring to gcc's C99 status page:

<http://gcc.gnu.org/c99status.html>

B of course ICBW.

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[Chris Hills]

In article <4M******************************@bt.com>, Richard Heathfield
<rj*@see.sig.invalidwrites

>Chris Hills said:

>In article <46***************@yahoo.com>, CBFalconer
<cb********@yahoo.comwrites

<snip>

>>The GNU C99 report should be an excellent guide.

GNU? Now I thought they had their own version of C.

BTW where do I get this report?

I would guess that Chuck is referring to gcc's C99 status page:

<http://gcc.gnu.org/c99status.html>

That's not really relevant to what we are doing.

--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ ch***@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

[James Kanze]

On Sep 10, 1:48 am, Jerry Coffin <[e-mail]:

In article <[e-mail]. com>,
[e-mail] says...

[ ... ]

Perhaps I didn't really express myself clearly. From what I
understand (and I could easily be mistaken---I don't follow
developments under Windows very closely), Microsoft only
commercializes a C++ compiler system. That compiler system does
compile some C, for reasons of backwards compatibility, or
interfacing existing systems, or whatever, but it is not sold as
a conforming C compiler, and it makes no attempt to be
conforming. In sum, it's like the bundled C compiler in the
final versions of Sun OS 4.x.

That's incorrect (or at least misleading). Microsoft's compiler runs in
two different modes, one as a C compiler and the other as a C++
compiler. In C mode, it has quite good conformance up through C95, but
little of what was added in C99 is supported. It attempts to conform
quite closely with those standards, and succeeds about as well as most
(i.e. I've seen a few bugs in its implementation, but while I haven't
kept a log of them, I don't recall them being particularly problematic
or frequently encountered).

But is that because they are still trying to sell C, and track
the standard, and just aren't succeeding, or is it because they
no longer consider C relevant to their marketing strategy, and
the current state corresponds more or less to the state the
compiler had when they made this decision. (My own impression
is that nobody in the Windows world uses C any more, but I'll
admit that I don't really know that well what goes on in the
Windows world.)

--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:ja*********@gmail.com
Conseils en informatique orientée objet/
Beratung in objektorientierter Datenverarbeitung
9 place Sémard, 78210 St.-Cyr-l'École, France, [phone]

[Flash Gordon]

Chris Hills wrote, On 10/09/07 08:15:

In article <46***************@yahoo.com>, CBFalconer
<cb********@yahoo.comwrites

>Chris Hills wrote:

>>>

... snip ...

>>>
The MISRA-C team has to make a decision: should it move from
Referencing C95 (9899:1990+A1+RC1+TC2) to referencing C99 for
the next MISRA-C?

In the real world (especially embedded, safety-critical and
high-integrity circles) there are no C99 compilers in use as on
September 2007. There are a lot that are C95+.

Any thoughts from anyone involved in writing compilers? Either to
the NG or to my email address. Yes, I have asked most of the
main embedded compiler companies I have contacts for (about 15 of
them so far) .

Since the C99 standard is easily available, and the C90 is not,

Both are readily availible

>I
think MISRA should switch.

I was looking for technical reasons

One technical reason to reference C99 is to explicitly ban anything that
would be illegal in C99. For example banning implicit int (if you don't
already) etc.

If the compiler writers are telling you they will not support C99 by the
time the new Misra standard is released then from a purely practical
perspective I think you have to mandate the common subset of C95 and C99.

>Their recommended practices can be used
to eliminate C99 features that are not widely implemented.

Good point

>The GNU
C99 report should be an excellent guide.

GNU? Now I thought they had their own version of C.

They do support the C standard as well.
--
Flash Gordon

[CBFalconer]

Chris Hills wrote:

CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.comwrites

.... snip ...

>>
Since the C99 standard is easily available, and the C90 is not,

Both are readily availible

I disagree. Both N869 and N1124 are freely available to all, and
are sufficiently close for all practical purposes. I know of no
such availability for C90 (or C95, or C89).

--
Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

[Keith Thompson]

CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.comwrites:

Chris Hills wrote:

>CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.comwrites

... snip ...

>>>
Since the C99 standard is easily available, and the C90 is not,

Both are readily availible

I disagree. Both N869 and N1124 are freely available to all, and
are sufficiently close for all practical purposes. I know of no
such availability for C90 (or C95, or C89).

Right, and the C99 standard itself is available from ANSI for not too
much money.

I own PDF copies of the C90 and C99 standards, both purchased on-line
from ANSI, but as far as I know the C90 standard is no longer
available (except perhaps as an overpriced hard copy). I'd love to
have a *decent* PDF of the C90 standard. The one I have appears to
have been scanned from a hard copy, and copy-and-pasting from it is
not easy (I always have to correct errors manually).

But since C90 is obsolete as far as ANSI and ISO are concerned, that's
probably not going to happen.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <* <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
"We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this."
-- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

[pete]

Keith Thompson wrote:

I own PDF copies of the C90 and C99 standards, both purchased on-line
from ANSI, but as far as I know the C90 standard is no longer
available (except perhaps as an overpriced hard copy). I'd love to
have a *decent* PDF of the C90 standard. The one I have appears to
have been scanned from a hard copy, and copy-and-pasting from it is
not easy (I always have to correct errors manually).

http://webstore.ansi.org/RecordDetai...u=AS+3955-1991

Mine looks clean and not as though scanned from a hard copy.

--
pete

[Joe Wright]

Keith Thompson wrote:

CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.comwrites:

>Chris Hills wrote:

>>CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.comwrites

... snip ...

>>>Since the C99 standard is easily available, and the C90 is not,
Both are readily availible

I disagree. Both N869 and N1124 are freely available to all, and
are sufficiently close for all practical purposes. I know of no
such availability for C90 (or C95, or C89).

Right, and the C99 standard itself is available from ANSI for not too
much money.

I own PDF copies of the C90 and C99 standards, both purchased on-line
from ANSI, but as far as I know the C90 standard is no longer
available (except perhaps as an overpriced hard copy). I'd love to
have a *decent* PDF of the C90 standard. The one I have appears to
have been scanned from a hard copy, and copy-and-pasting from it is
not easy (I always have to correct errors manually).

But since C90 is obsolete as far as ANSI and ISO are concerned, that's
probably not going to happen.

My copy of a draft starts out..

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG14
N794

...and I find several references on the Google.

--
Joe Wright
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
--- Albert Einstein ---

[Keith Thompson]

pete <pf*****@mindspring.comwrites:

Keith Thompson wrote:

>I own PDF copies of the C90 and C99 standards, both purchased on-line
from ANSI, but as far as I know the C90 standard is no longer
available (except perhaps as an overpriced hard copy). I'd love to
have a *decent* PDF of the C90 standard. The one I have appears to
have been scanned from a hard copy, and copy-and-pasting from it is
not easy (I always have to correct errors manually).

http://webstore.ansi.org/RecordDetai...u=AS+3955-1991

Mine looks clean and not as though scanned from a hard copy.

Thanks, but it's not worth $112 to me. (They've got a lot of nerve
charging that much for a soft copy of an obsolete standard.)

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <* <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
"We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this."
-- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

[Keith Thompson]

Joe Wright <jo********@comcast.netwrites:

Keith Thompson wrote:

>CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.comwrites:

>>Chris Hills wrote:
CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.comwrites

... snip ...
Since the C99 standard is easily available, and the C90 is not,
Both are readily availible
I disagree. Both N869 and N1124 are freely available to all, and
are sufficiently close for all practical purposes. I know of no
such availability for C90 (or C95, or C89).

Right, and the C99 standard itself is available from ANSI for not too
much money.

I own PDF copies of the C90 and C99 standards, both purchased on-line
from ANSI, but as far as I know the C90 standard is no longer
available (except perhaps as an overpriced hard copy). I'd love to
have a *decent* PDF of the C90 standard. The one I have appears to
have been scanned from a hard copy, and copy-and-pasting from it is
not easy (I always have to correct errors manually).

But since C90 is obsolete as far as ANSI and ISO are concerned, that's
probably not going to happen.

My copy of a draft starts out..

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG14
N794

..and I find several references on the Google.

I found that (as n2620.pdf), but it's a draft from 1997-11-21. It
includes a lot of C99 features, such as long long, <stdbool.h>,
<stdint.h>, and <complex.h>. If I want C99, n1124 is much better, and
I have the actual C99 standard anyway.

What I'd like (and it doesn't seem to exist) is a decent PDF copy of
the *C90* standard for a reasonable price.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <* <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
"We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this."
-- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

[CBFalconer]

Chris Hills wrote:

<rj*@see.sig.invalidwrites

>Chris Hills said:

>><cb********@yahoo.comwrites

<snip>

>>>The GNU C99 report should be an excellent guide.
^^^^^
GNU? Now I thought they had their own version of C.

BTW where do I get this report?

I would guess that Chuck is referring to gcc's C99 status page:

<http://gcc.gnu.org/c99status.html>

That's not really relevant to what we are doing.

Note the underlined word above. You can't really switch to full
C99, because the compilers don't generally exist.

--
Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

[Jerry Coffin]

In article <11**********************@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups .com>,
ja*********@gmail.com says...

[ ... ]

But is that because they are still trying to sell C, and track
the standard, and just aren't succeeding, or is it because they
no longer consider C relevant to their marketing strategy, and
the current state corresponds more or less to the state the
compiler had when they made this decision. (My own impression
is that nobody in the Windows world uses C any more, but I'll
admit that I don't really know that well what goes on in the
Windows world.)

As far as I can tell, it's somewhere between the two -- MS has reduced
the priority on development of the C compiler considerably, but seems to
still make minor updates, at least ocassionally. It IS a bit hard to
tell how much of this is by design and how much is more or less an
accidental by-product of development on the C++ compiler though. In
particular, while each obviously has an independent front-end, I believe
the code-generation and such are shared, and (of course) most of the C
library is used by the C++ compiler as well. Some of the things that
affect the C compiler may really originate with development on the C++
part -- I'm just not sure.

Unless I'm badly mistaken, however, that's substantially different from
the situation with Sun's compilers. If memory serves, the C and C++
compilers they sold for developement were entirely separate from the
ancient C compiler that was included with the OS -- IIRC, updates to the
development system had no effect on the one included with the OS at all.

--
Later,
Jerry.

The universe is a figment of its own imagination.

[Chris Hills]

In article <46***************@yahoo.com>, CBFalconer
<cb********@yahoo.comwrites

>Chris Hills wrote:

>CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.comwrites

... snip ...

>>>
Since the C99 standard is easily available, and the C90 is not,

Both are readily availible

I disagree. Both N869 and N1124 are f

Not standards.

>reely available to all, and
are sufficiently close for all practical purposes. I know of no
such availability for C90 (or C95, or C89).

You can buy C90 from BSI and ISO
--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ ch***@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

[Chris Hills]

In article <99************@news.flash-gordon.me.uk>, Flash Gordon
<sp**@flash-gordon.me.ukwrites

>Chris Hills wrote, On 10/09/07 08:15:

>In article <46***************@yahoo.com>, CBFalconer
<cb********@yahoo.comwrites

>>Chris Hills wrote:

... snip ...

The MISRA-C team has to make a decision: should it move from
Referencing C95 (9899:1990+A1+RC1+TC2) to referencing C99 for
the next MISRA-C?

In the real world (especially embedded, safety-critical and
high-integrity circles) there are no C99 compilers in use as on
September 2007. There are a lot that are C95+.

Any thoughts from anyone involved in writing compilers? Either to
the NG or to my email address. Yes, I have asked most of the
main embedded compiler companies I have contacts for (about 15 of
them so far) .

Since the C99 standard is easily available, and the C90 is not,

Both are readily availible

>>I
think MISRA should switch.

I was looking for technical reasons

One technical reason to reference C99 is to explicitly ban anything
that would be illegal in C99. For example banning implicit int (if you
don't already) etc.

Good point :-)

>If the compiler writers are telling you they will not support C99 by
the time the new Misra standard is released

It's unlikely

then from a purely practical perspective I think you have to mandate
the common subset of C95 and C99.

That makes sense

>

>>Their recommended practices can be used
to eliminate C99 features that are not widely implemented.

Good point

>>The GNU
C99 report should be an excellent guide.

GNU? Now I thought they had their own version of C.

They do support the C standard as well.

However we are doing the MISRA-C for critical systems.
--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ ch***@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

[Ben Bacarisse]

Chris Hills <ch***@phaedsys.orgwrites:

In article <46***************@yahoo.com>, CBFalconer
<cb********@yahoo.comwrites

>>Chris Hills wrote:

>>CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.comwrites

... snip ...

>>>>
Since the C99 standard is easily available, and the C90 is not,

Both are readily availible

I disagree. Both N869 and N1124 are f

Not standards.

>>reely available to all, and
are sufficiently close for all practical purposes. I know of no
such availability for C90 (or C95, or C89).

You can buy C90 from BSI and ISO

A mere £200 (about $400 at current rates). They are taking the
<censored></censored>.

--
Ben.