boob_warbler

At least since C99, I’ve seen a trend where ISO tends to bring in unnecessary C++ features in. In fact, the current boss of WG14 quite explicitly calls for bridging gaps, modernising capabilities, and bringing select features (like constexpr object definitions and ergonomics) closer to what developers enjoy in C++, while “balancing C’s unique philosophy and design constraints”. I don’t suppose it sat well with most C developers who feel C++ has evolved into a language of its own and that we shouldn’t try to bridge gaps that don’t exist. And consequently, the very fear of “dead on arrival” features have already crept in. Off the top of my mind, VLA is one such example. Appeared in C99 and is now a deprecated feature.

That said, C89 is, for most parts enough to express that largest chunk of your codebase. But sure, you might need a little bit of size guaranteed integers, so you could borrow that from C99. What’re you left with? The convenience of declaring variables midway? That’s about as far as it goes. In very rare circumstances you might want to statically assert macros is global variables. Sure, pick C11 just for that task.

If I really need some awesome syntax sugars, I’d rather use one of those modern languages like Zig, Rust and what nots…

I’d recommend not to alias compilers like that. Rather, if you’re interested, you could just use a simple Makefile like shown below and get it over with. Save it into a file called Makefile (yes, uppercase M followed by akefile all lowercase) in the same directory as your program.c file.

Note, I have used -std=c89 but you can delete that line or maybe even use a more modern standard such as -std=c23 if you like. If you delete, both gcc and clang will default to the latest ISO standard supported by that version of compiler.

Also since you’re compiling only a single file, I have used program.c as input producing program executable on UNIX. To run this Makefile you need to invoke make from the same directory as Makefile on command-line as:

make W=1

to enable all the warnings and compile. If you set W=0 it will not warn or even print any diagnostic unless compiler really cannot generate the executable. You can also pass D=0 for optimised/release build, D=1 for debug build so you can backtrack in gdb. You can also pass A=1 if you want address sanitisers enabled. It will report if your program is touching or even looking at pointers/memory regions the wrong way, leaking memory or just generally doing operations that cannot guarantee correct behaviour. Passing V=1 will display the exact command executed to compile, otherwise it will silently compile.

Here’s the full Makefile I use:

# Control build verbosity.
V                               ?= 0
ifeq ($(V),1)
    Q                           :=
else
    Q                           := @
endif
# Control DEBUG (1) or RELEASE (0) build.
D                               ?= 1
# Add some warning flags?
W                               ?= 0
# Add some address/undefined sanitiser flags?
A                               ?= 1

ifeq ($(shell $(CC) -v 2>&1 | grep -c "gcc version"),1)
    COMPILER                    := gnu
else ifeq ($(shell $(CC) -v 2>&1 | grep -c "clang version"),1)
    COMPILER                    := llvm
endif

# Delete environment garbage so we can generate absolutely controlled 
LDFLAGS                         :=
CFLAGS                          :=

ifeq ($(D),1)
    CFLAGS_DEFS                 += -D_DEBUG
else
    CFLAGS_DEFS                 += -DNDEBUG
endif
CFLAGS_DEFS                     += -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600
ifeq ($(D),0)
    CFLAGS_DEFS                 += -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2
endif
CFLAGS_DEFS                     += -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE=1
CFLAGS_DEFS                     += -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE=1

ifeq ($(W),1)
    CFLAGS_STDS                 += -std=c89
    CFLAGS_STDS                 += -Wpedantic
    CFLAGS_STDS                 += -pedantic-errors

    CFLAGS_STDS                 += -Werror
    CFLAGS_STDS                 += -Wall
    CFLAGS_STDS                 += -Wextra
    ifeq ($(COMPILER),gnu)
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wbad-function-cast
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wcast-align
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wcast-qual
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wduplicated-branches
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wduplicated-cond
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wfloat-equal
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wformat-nonliteral
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wformat-security
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wformat-signedness
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wformat-truncation=2
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wformat=2
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Winline
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wlogical-op
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wmissing-declarations
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wmissing-format-attribute
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wmissing-include-dirs
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wmissing-noreturn
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wmissing-prototypes
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wnested-externs
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wno-unused-result
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wnull-dereference
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wold-style-definition
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wpointer-arith
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wpointer-sign
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wredundant-decls
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wrestrict
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wreturn-type
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wshadow
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wsign-compare
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wsign-conversion
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wstrict-aliasing
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wstrict-prototypes
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wswitch-enum
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wtrampolines
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wundef
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wuninitialized
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunreachable-code
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-but-set-parameter
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-but-set-variable
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-label
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-local-typedefs
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-parameter
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-variable
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wwrite-strings
    else
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wmost
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Warray-bounds-pointer-arithmetic
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wassign-enum
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wcomma
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wconditional-uninitialized
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wformat-type-confusion
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Widiomatic-parentheses
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wloop-analysis
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wshift-sign-overflow
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wshorten-64-to-32
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wstrict-aliasing=2
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wstrict-overflow=5
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wtautological-constant-in-range-compare
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wthread-safety
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunreachable-code-aggressive
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-argument
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-but-set-parameter
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-but-set-variable
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-comparison
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-const-variable
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-exception-parameter
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-function
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-label
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-local-typedefs
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-macros
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-parameter
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-value
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-variable
        CFLAGS_STDS             += -Wunused-volatile-lvalue
    endif
else
	# Disable all manners of warnings, even default ones.
	CFLAGS_STDS                 += -w
endif

CFLAGS_OPTS                     += -fPIC

# These are needed anyway.
ifeq ($(D),1)
    CFLAGS_OPTS                 += -O0 -g3 -ggdb3
    CFLAGS_OPTS                 += -fno-omit-frame-pointer
else
    CFLAGS_OPTS                 += -O3
    CFLAGS_OPTS                 += -ffunction-sections
    CFLAGS_OPTS                 += -fdata-sections
    CFLAGS_OPTS                 += -fmerge-all-constants
endif
ifeq ($(A),1)
    CFLAGS_OPTS                 += -fsanitize=address,leak,undefined
endif

# Add more include directories to your liking
CFLAGS_INCS                     += -I.

# Assemble them all into a singfle
CFLAGS                          += $(CFLAGS_DEFS)
CFLAGS                          += $(CFLAGS_INCS)
CFLAGS                          += $(CFLAGS_STDS)
CFLAGS                          += $(CFLAGS_OPTS)

LDFLAGS                         += -Wl,--as-needed
LDFLAGS                         += -Wl,--gc-sections
LDFLAGS                         += -Wl,--no-undefined
LDFLAGS                         += -Wl,-z,defs
LDFLAGS                         += -Wl,-z,nocombreloc
LDFLAGS                         += -Wl,-z,now
LDFLAGS                         += -Wl,-z,relro


# The $(Q)$(CC) has a real TAB before it, not space. If you copy paste from Lemmy, you might end up with spaces.
program: program.c
	$(Q)$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $@ $< $(LDFLAGS)

.DEFAULT_GOAL := all
.PHONY: all
all: program

.PHONY: clean
# The space before $(Q)$(RM) is real TAB as well.
clean:
	$(Q)$(RM) program

For 1, I’d like for you to think you’re telling a story, one that is really air tight and unambiguous. If you think putting all the calls in main() can help you tell that story, then so be it.

For 2, of late industrial software development has largely moved to keeping variables as local as possible so its easier to express provenance. This has been the case for at least a good 3-4 decades now.

At no extra cost, I’d like to give you an unsolicited advice. If you’re using modern, real C compilers like gcc or clang, I’d strongly recommend you pass -Wpedantic -pedantic-errors -Wall -Wextra on the command line.

gcc -Wpedantic -pedantic-errors -Wall -Wextra -Werror program.c

and if you’re using clang, also pass -Wmost along with the rest. Learning C is one thing. But following the standard rules right from the start, it will save you from unexpected grief later on. If you try compiling your code under these flags now, it will refuse to compile. I’d suggest you try fixing as much as you can, then go back to compiling the normal way until you get a hang of things.

Its a topical ointment sold for less than a dollar. Its a placebo, but smells nice.