Re: Suggested method for returning a string from a C program?

On 23/03/2025 20:35, Tim Rentsch wrote:

Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> writes:
 

On 22/03/2025 23:46, Tim Rentsch wrote:
>

Here is my summary of the corresponding list in the C11 standard
(descriptive headings reprepresent my own views on each area):

>
Thank you, Tim.  What I'm taking away from this is that I'm not
personally affected by the changes.

 I had a similar reaction when C99 came out.  In fact it was several
years before I started looking at C99 as a suitable alternative to
using just C90.  Gradually I began to see that the new features of
C99 offered substantial advantages over what C90 offers.  My
impression is the C community at large followed a similar timeline.
 For C11 I am somewhere in the middle.  Most of the time I find C99
adequate, and don't need the capabilities added in C11;  so C99 is
still my default choice, with C11 being the exception.  However,
for building software libraries rather than just programs, C11
allows some significant benefits, so I am turning more and more
to C11 as I add functionality to the library projects I'm working
on.  (I should add that I try to write code that can benefit from
C11 but still can be called from C99 or C90, perhaps with reduced
functionality.)
 

I can somewhat agree with those sentiments.
In my field, C99 support was not an option for many compilers for several years - some toolchains have never had good support for it.  (I remember seeing a toolchain in the 2010's advertised as "now with partial C99 support" as a feature.)  So it took time before I could use it properly.
However, once I got used to it, the difference to the way I code was significant.  I greatly dislike the occasions when I have to go back to the middle ages coding in C90 - though not as much as the dark ages of large-scale assembly programming.  I have not the slightest doubt that with C99, my code is clearer, better structured, has a lower risk of errors and is easier to maintain than with C90.  I won't claim it is /hugely/ better, but it is definitely significant.  C99 is when C grew up.
The changes in C11 are much less, but there are some that are useful to me.  C17 is just a bug-fix (and slightly nicer typography).  C23 has a number of useful features, but again is not like the step from C90 to C99.  (And of course newer standards always have features that I dislike too.)
One thing I generally like with newer standards is that it can mean fewer implementation-specific features in my code, or fewer ugly workarounds.  I expect to see at least some of my gcc __attribute__'s replaced by [[C23 attributes]].  C11 came with a real _Static_assert, instead of having to use ugly macros for the task.  These sorts of things don't make a big impact in my code (and are often tidied away in macros anyway), but are nice to see.
I don't expect to be relying on C23 features for a while yet, however - I expect most of my new C code to be compatible with C99 (or at least, "gnu99").  And of course I won't change existing projects to newer standards.