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Possible Duplicate:
Where do I find the current C or C++ standard documents?

Where can I read C99 official language standard manual/reference/specification online?

Community
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eonil
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4 Answers4

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The standard itself is here(a) (with TC1, 2 and 3 included), the rationale document is here.


(a) Actually, it's the final draft but is still useful because:

  • the changes from final draft to published standard are usually minimal to none; and
  • it's free unlike the actual standards :-)
paxdiablo
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The official standard should not be available online — ISO and its national standards bodies would be unhappy about that. You can obtain an official electronic copy from the ANSI store (http://webstore.ansi.org/) for $18 $30 (or thereabouts — it was $18 when I obtained the C99 standard, but that was quite a while ago now; it was $30 for the C11 standard). Or you can go to the web site linked in other answers (and via Wikipedia) — namely http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/ - and obtain almost official copies of the standards documents.

Jonathan Leffler
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    I can't believe that the official standard for one of the worlds most used and powerful languages is closed away like this. – Nathan Lilienthal Dec 04 '13 at 17:45
  • @Jonathan, Is this how they make money? But surely the number of buyers would be extremely little to make up for any profit right? – Pacerier Dec 19 '14 at 13:51
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    I am merely describing the status quo, not defending it. I have not studied the finances of ISO or ANSI or BSI… On the whole, $30 is a reasonable value. Buying the complete SQL standard requires a multi-thousand dollar layout (multiple parts at more than $300 each), which is much less reasonable. – Jonathan Leffler Dec 19 '14 at 14:19
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Here's the link to the standard N897 C Standard Rationale and here's the full documentation N1124 as set down by ISO committee, here's a wiki detailing about the standards

t0mm13b
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Wikipedia links directly to it.

abelenky
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