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Best Practices for Programming in C

Posted by michael on from the don't-start dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Although the C language has been around for close to 30 years, its appeal has not yet worn off. It continues to attract a large number of people who must develop new skills for writing new applications, or for porting or maintaining existing applications. This article provides a set of guidelines that can help you with your coding."

5 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Best practice? Don't use it! by pauljlucas · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ... most programmers don't have enough training to use a more complex language.
    C is a fairly complex language, e.g.:
    some_func( (void (*)(void*))x );
    C is really just glorified assembly language.
    I don't think this has ever been in distpute by anybody. However, it's still far easier to write in C than assembly.
    I think that C and 'C++ used as C' is the reason alot of commercial software is so bug ridden. Hopefully Java, .NET/.GNU, scripting languages and competent use of modern C++ are starting to change that.
    Java (and other "restrictive" languages) only prevent a small class of errors, e.g., memory leaks. They do nothing to prevent logic or algorithmic errors, and they all have their own gotchas. Try changing what hashcode() returns for an object at run-time after you've put in into a hashmap: have fun finding and debugging that!
    --
    If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
  2. use good libraries by nthomas · · Score: 5, Informative
    In addition to the good advice proffered by the article, I should also like to add that using good libraries can make a world of difference.

    For example, for the C program that I'm writing right now, I decided to use GLib -- the base utillity library used by GTK.

    I initially chose it for portability reasons, but soon discovered it had a wealth of cool stuff in it. In addition to providing the standard data structures (trees, hashes, linked lists), it also has a string type ( GString, ) which handles a lot of the string issues that C programmers get bogged down with.

    A lot of the gotchas (buffer overflows, et. al.) mentioned in this article have to do with these string issues, and using GLib's GString data type has enabled me to avoid those.

    There is another library similar to GLib, The Apache Portable Runtime, used in the Apache webserver, and also in Subversion.

    In addition to all this, I'm using XML as the storage format for my program, mostly because libxml takes care of the file parsing issues so I don't have to.

    Bottom line, choose your libraries carefully, they can make a world of difference.

    Thomas

  3. More Tips! by mugnyte · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh what enlightenment!

    - When you've learned all there is to know about C, find out how to simplify it a bit in C++. Notice the job security and look of awe when you master the ++.

    - After mucking around in these low-density languages, step up to Perl and see how a language built by a task-oriented person stomps one built by a system-oriented person. See your project file sizes shrink before your very eyes!

    - Now take your newfound magic ability to learn new languages and apply it to whipping out pages with PHP and MySQL for all your friends quickly! You'll be the talk of the C crawlers crowd! Hey! Gimmie some content! Aw, forget it - let me just play!

    - Now plumb the depths of (supposed) machine-independent laguanges by writing some Java and finding out what "Sun-certified" means! (hint: Sun owns it)

    - Optional: Head back to school to get a PhD in autoprogramming theory and self-construction methods. Sequester yourself away to your dorm room for endless hours of experiments training a neural net to convert tasks to code using the most efficient method possible.

    - Finally, wrap up your technical life by examining all these related language nuances holistically and achieve the zen of programming: "there is no language"

  4. Re:Looks like the author also knows VB by avalys · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article specifically refers to the snippet you mentioned as pseudocode, not C.

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  5. Re:Using continue in place of the null statement? by AuraSeer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's even clearer to use curly brackets, but the article doesn't mention that either.

    IMO every loop should have brackets, and every 'if' statement too, even when not strictly necessary. They're as good as extra whitespace for visually separating chunks of code, and there's absolutely no downside to including them. I've never understood why many C programmers are so resistant to the idea of extra brackets.