slibc

slibc copied to clipboard

NAME slibc - the Stockholm C Standard Library

DESCRIPTION slibc is a POSIX C standard library. It aims to support ISO C99, and newer versions of ISO C, other versions of C are ignored except for proper feature-test macros. Ignores all languages other than C, this means that slibc cannot be used in C++ by merely including the header files.

In addition to POSIX, slibc aims to support common
extensions, especially those in the GNU C Library because of
its predominance on GNU systems. slibc also aims to fill the
lacunæ in the C standard library specification, and make
programming in C even easier by adding functions that would
be generally useful are impossible to implement efficiently
in other libraries.

FEATURE-TEST MACROS slibc defines a few slibc-specified feature-test macros:

_SLIBC_SOURCE
	Enable slibc extensions. These extensions are
	often extensions introduced in other C libraries,
	but are considered good extensions.

	slibc provides some slibc-specific extensions that
	do not require _SLIBC_SOURCE. (They are however
	disabled if _PORTABLE_SOURCE or _LIBRARY_HEADER are
	defined.) These extensions are defined in header
	files whose name starts with 'slibc-'. Headers
	starting with 'slibc/' are not extensions, those are
	internals that may change at any time.

_SLIBC_SUPPRESS_WARNINGS
	Suppress all #warning and other warnings, this is
	primarily intended to be used when compiling slibc.

_PORTABLE_SOURCE
	Unconditionally disable all non-POSIX extensions, and
	otherwise help ensure that the source is portable.

_LIBRARY_HEADER
	Alternative to _PORTABLE_SOURCE that should be used in
	header files for libraries. This allows you to be sure
	that your library is portable between libc:s, and that
	sources using your library does not been to be compiled
	with the same libc. It is important to use this instead
	of _PORTABLE_SOURCE in library header files, otherwise
	the user of the library cannot fully utilise
	_PORTABLE_SOURCE.

COMMENTS Writing a C standard library is a massive task. As I only have x86_64 hardware, I will require help write the assembly code for other hardware. I also need help writing the texinfo manual and example code for functions, help figuring out the correct feature-test macros for all functions, their etymology, and in which libc implementions they appear. Help optimising all functions would also be appreciated.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS The macro _SMALL_BINARY shall whenever available, create macros that make the program use implementions of the functions that optimised for size rather than performance. It should be compile-time selectable whether this macro has any effect, or if it is always in effect. _FAST_BINARY could also be added to make the program use fast implementions when the library is compiled to use the size optimised implementations.

RATIONALE slibc is written as a learning exercise, and for fun.

SEE ALSO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_standard_library

Full documentation available locally via: info '(slibc)'