C standard library

The C standard library or libc is the standard library for the C programming language, as specified in the ANSI C standard.[1] It
was developed at the same time asthe C library POSIX specification, which is a superset of it.[2][3] Since ANSI C was adopted by the
International Organization for Standardization,[4] the C standard library is also called theISO C library.

The C standard library provides macros, type definitions and functions for tasks such as string handling, mathematical computations,
input/output processing,memory management, and several other operating system services.

Contents
Application programming interface
Header files
Documentation
Implementations
Compiler built-in functions
Linking, libm
Detection
Concepts, problems and workarounds
Buffer overflow vulnerabilities
Threading problems, vulnerability to race conditions
Error handling
Standardization
POSIX standard library
BSD libc
The C standard library in other languages
Comparison to standard libraries of other languages
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
External links

Application programming interface

Header files
The application programming interface (API) of the C standard library is declared in a number of header files. Each header file
contains one or more function declarations, data type definitions, and macros.

After a long period of stability, three new header files (iso646.h, wchar.h, and wctype.h) were added with Normative
Addendum 1 (NA1), an addition to the C Standard ratified in 1995. Six more header files (complex.h, fenv.h, inttypes.h,
stdbool.h, stdint.h, and tgmath.h) were added with C99, a revision to the C Standard published in 1999, and five more
files (stdalign.h, stdatomic.h, stdnoreturn.h, threads.h, and uchar.h) with C11 in 2011. In total, there are now
29 header files:
 Name From Description
Contains the assert macro, used to assist with detecting logical errors and other types
<assert.h>
of bug in debugging versions of a program.
<complex.h> C99 A set of functions for manipulating complex numbers.

Defines set of functions used to classify characters by their types or to convert

between upper and lower case in a way that is independent of the used character set
<ctype.h>
(typically ASCII or one of its extensions, although implementations utilizingEBCDIC
are also known).
<errno.h> For testing error codes reported by library functions.

<fenv.h> C99 Defines a set of functions for controlling floating-point environment.

Defines macro constants specifying the implementation-specific properties of the

<float.h>
floating-point library.
<inttypes.h> C99 Defines exact width integer types.

Defines several macros that implement alternative ways to express several standard
<iso646.h> NA1
tokens. For programming inISO 646 variant character sets.
Defines macro constants specifying the implementation-specific properties of the
<limits.h>
integer types.
<locale.h> Defines localization functions.

<math.h> Defines common mathematical functions.

<setjmp.h> Declares the macros setjmp and longjmp, which are used for non-local exits.

<signal.h> Defines signal handling functions.

<stdalign.h> C11 For querying and specifying thealignment of objects.

<stdarg.h> For accessing a varying number of arguments passed to functions.

<stdatomic.h> C11 For atomic operations on data shared between threads.

<stdbool.h> C99 Defines a boolean data type.

<stddef.h> Defines several useful types and macros.

<stdint.h> C99 Defines exact width integer types.

<stdio.h> Defines core input and output functions

Defines numeric conversion functions, pseudo-random numbers generation functions

,
<stdlib.h>
memory allocation, process control functions
<stdnoreturn.h> C11 For specifying non-returning functions.

<string.h> Defines string handling functions.

<tgmath.h> C99 Defines type-generic mathematical functions.

Defines functions for managing multipleThreads as well as mutexes and condition

<threads.h> C11
variables.
<time.h> Defines date and time handling functions

<uchar.h> C11 Types and functions for manipulatingUnicode characters.

<wchar.h> NA1 Defines wide string handling functions.

Defines set of functions used to classify wide characters by their types or to convert
<wctype.h> NA1
between upper and lower case

Three of the header files (complex.h, stdatomic.h, and threads.h) are conditional features that implementations are not
required to support.
The POSIX standard added several nonstandard C headers for Unix-specific functionality. Many have found their way to other
architectures. Examples include unistd.h and signal.h. A number of other groups are using other nonstandard headers - the
GNU C Library has alloca.h and HP OpenVMS has the va_count() function.

Documentation
On Unix-like systems, the authoritative documentation of the actually implemented API is provided in the form of man pages. On
most systems, man pages on standard library functions are in section 3; section 7 may contain some more generic pages on
underlying concepts (e.g.man 7 math_errorin Linux).

Implementations
Unix-like systems typically have a C library in shared library form, but the header files (and compiler toolchain) may be absent from
an installation so C development may not be possible. The C library is considered part of the operating system on Unix-like systems.
The C functions, including the ISO C standard ones, are widely used by programs, and are regarded as if they were not only an
implementation of something in the C language, but also de facto part of the operating system interface. Unix-like operating systems
generally cannot function if the C library is erased. This is true for applications which are dynamically as opposed to statically linked.
Further, the kernel itself (at least in the case of Linux) operates independently of any libraries.

On Microsoft Windows, the core system dynamic libraries (DLLs) provide an implementation of the C standard library for the
Microsoft Visual C++ compiler v6.0; the C standard library for newer versions of the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler is provided by
each compiler individually, as well as redistributable packages. Compiled applications written in C are either statically linked with a
C library, or linked to a dynamic version of the library that is shipped with these applications, rather than relied upon to be present on
the targeted systems. Functions in a compiler's Clibrary are not regarded as interfaces to Microsoft W
indows.

Many other implementations exist, provided with both various operating systems and C compilers. Some of the popular
implementations are the following:

BSD libc, implementations distributed underBSD operating systems

GNU C Library (glibc), used in GNU Hurd, GNU/kFreeBSD and Linux
Microsoft C run-time library, part of Microsoft Visual C++
dietlibc, an alternative small implementation of the C standard library (MMU-less)
μClibc, a C standard library for embeddedμClinux systems (MMU-less)
[5]
Newlib, a C standard library for embedded systems (MMU-less)
klibc, primarily for booting Linux systems
[6]
musl, another lightweight C standard library implementation for Linux systems
Bionic, originally developed by Google for the Android embedded system operating system, derived from BSD libc

Compiler built-in functions

Some compilers (for example, GCC[7]) provide built-in versions of many of the functions in the C standard library; that is, the
implementations of the functions are written into the compiled object file, and the program calls the built-in versions instead of the
functions in the C library shared object file. This reduces function call overhead, especially if function calls are replaced with inline
variants, and allows other forms of optimization (as the compiler knows the control-flow characteristics of the built-in variants), but
may cause confusion when debugging (for example, the built-in versions cannot be replaced with
instrumented variants).

However, the built-in functions must behave like ordinary functions in accordance with ISO C. The main implication is that the
program must be able to create a pointer to these functions by taking their address, and invoke the function by means of that pointer.
If two pointers to the same function are derived in two different translation units in the program, these two pointers must compare
equal; that is, the address comes by resolving the name of the function, which has external (program-wide) linkage.
Linking, libm
Under FreeBSD and Linux,[8] the mathematical functions (as declared in math.h) are bundled separately in the mathematical
library libm. If any of them are used, the linker must be given the directive-lm.

Detection
According to the C standard the macro __STDC_HOSTED__ shall be defined to 1 if the implementation is hosted. A hosted
implementation has all the headers specified by the C standard. An implementation can also be freestanding which means that these
headers will not be present. If an implementation isfreestanding, it shall define __STDC_HOSTED__to 0.

Concepts, problems and workarounds

Buffer overflow vulnerabilities

Some functions in the C standard library have been notorious for having buffer overflow vulnerabilities and generally encouraging
buggy programming ever since their adoption.[a] The most criticized items are:

string-manipulation routines, including strcpy() and strcat(), for lack of bounds checking and possible buf fer
overflows if the bounds aren't checked manually;
string routines in general, forside-effects, encouraging irresponsible buffer usage, not always guaranteeing valid
null-terminated output, linear length calculation;[b]
printf() family of routines, for spoiling theexecution stack when the format string doesn't match the arguments
given. This fundamental flaw created an entire class of attacks:format string attacks;
gets() and scanf() family of I/O routines, for lack of (either any or easy) input length checking.
Except the extreme case with gets(), all the security vulnerabilities can be avoided by introducing auxiliary code to perform
memory management, bounds checking, input checking, etc. This is often done in the form of wrappers that make standard library
functions safer and easier to use. This dates back to as early as The Practice of Programming book by B. Kernighan and R. Pike
where the authors commonly use wrappers that print error messages and quit the program if an error occurs.

The ISO C committee published Technical reports TR 24731-1[9] and is working on TR 24731-2[10] to propose adoption of some
functions with bounds checking and automatic buffer allocation, correspondingly. The former has met severe criticism with some
praise,[11][12] the latter received mixed responses. Despite this, TR 24731-1 has been implemented into Microsoft's C standard library
and its compiler issues warnings when using old "insecure" functions.

Threading problems, vulnerability to race conditions

The mktemp() and strerror() routines are criticized for beingthread unsafe and otherwise vulnerable torace conditions.

Error handling
The error handling of the functions in the C standard library is not consistent and sometimes confusing. According to the Linux
manual page math_error, "The current (version 2.8) situation under glibc is messy. Most (but not all) functions raise exceptions
."[13]
on errors. Some also seterrno. A few functions set errno, but don't raise an exception. A very few functions do neither

Standardization
The original C language provided no built-in functions such as I/O operations, unlike traditional languages such as COBOL and
Fortran. Over time, user communities of C shared ideas and implementations of what is now called C standard libraries. Many of
these ideas were incorporated eventually into the definition of the standardized C language.
Both Unix and C were created at AT&T's Bell Laboratories in the late 1960s and early 1970s. During the 1970s the C language
became increasingly popular. Many universities and organizations began creating their own variants of the language for their own
projects. By the beginning of the 1980s compatibility problems between the various C implementations became apparent. In 1983 the
American National Standards Institute (ANSI) formed a committee to establish a standard specification of C known as "ANSI C".
This work culminated in the creation of the so-called C89 standard in 1989. Part of the resulting standard was a set of software
libraries called the ANSI C standard library.

POSIX standard library

POSIX, as well as SUS, specify a number of routines that should be available over and above those in the basic C standard library.
The POSIX specification includes header files for, among other uses, multi-threading, networking, and regular expressions. These are
often implemented alongside the C standard library functionality, with varying degrees of closeness. For example, glibc implements
functions such as fork within libc.so, but before NPTL was merged into glibc it constituted a separate library with its own linker
flag argument. Often, this POSIX-specified functionality will be regarded as part of the library; the basic C library may be identified
as the ANSI or ISO C library.

BSD libc
BSD libc is a superset of the POSIX standard library used by BSD operating systems such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and
macOS. It first appeared in 4.4BSD, which was released in 1994. BSD libc has some extensions that are not defined in the original
standard. Some of the extensions of BSD libc are:

sys/tree.h – contains an implementation ofRed-black tree and Splay tree[14][15]

sys/queue.h – implementations of Linked list, queues, tail queue, etc.[16][17]
fgetln() – defined in stdio.h. This can be used to read a file line by line.[18][19][20]
[21][22]
fts.h – contains some functions to traverse a file hierarchy
db.h – some functions to connect to theBerkeley DB[23][24]
strlcat() and strlcpy() – secure alternatives forstrncat() and strncpy()[25][26][27][28][29]
[30][31]
err.h – contains some functions to print formatted error messages
vis.h – contains the vis() function. This function is used to display non-printable characters in a visual
format.[32][33][34]

The C standard library in other languages

Some languages include the functionality of the standard C library in their own libraries. The library may be adapted to better suit the
language's structure, but the operational semantics are kept similar. The C++ language, for example, includes the functionality of the
C standard library in the namespace std (e.g., std::printf, std::atoi, std::feof), in header files with similar names to
the C ones (cstdio, cmath, cstdlib, etc.). Other languages that take similar approaches are D, Perl, Ruby and the main
implementation of Python known as CPython. In Python 2, for example, the built-in file objects are defined as "implemented using
C's stdio package",[35] so that the available operations (open, read, write, etc.) are expected to have the same behavior as the
corresponding C functions. Rust has a crate called libc which allows several C functions, structs, and other type definitions to be
used.[36]

Comparison to standard libraries of other languages

The C standard library is small compared to the standard libraries of some other languages. The C library provides a basic set of
mathematical functions, string manipulation, type conversions, and file and console-based I/O. It does not include a standard set of
"container types" like the C++ Standard Template Library, let alone the complete graphical user interface (GUI) toolkits, networking
tools, and profusion of other functionality that Java and the .NET Framework provide as standard. The main advantage of the small
standard library is that providing a working ISO C environment is much easier than it is with other languages, and consequently
porting C to a new platform is comparatively easy
.

See also
C++ standard library

Notes
a. Morris worm that takes advantage of the well-known vulnerability ingets() have been created as early as in 1988.
b. in C standard library, string length calculationand looking for a string's end havelinear time complexitiesand are
inefficient when used on the same or relatedstrings repeatedly

References
1. ISO/IEC (1999). ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E): Programming Languages - C§7.19.1 para 1
2. "The GNU C Library –Introduction" (http://ftp.gnu.org/old-gnu/Manuals/glibc-2.2.3/html_chapter/libc_1.html)
.
gnu.org. Retrieved 2013-12-05.
3. "Difference between C standard library and CPOSIX library" (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9376837/differenc
e-bewteen-c-standard-library-and-c-posix-library)
. stackoverflow.com. 2012. Retrieved 2015-03-04.
4. "C Standards" (http://www.keil.com/support/docs/1893.htm). Keil. Retrieved 24 November 2011.
5. "Re: Does Newlib support mmu-less CPUs?"(http://www.cygwin.com/ml/newlib/2006/msg00224.html). Cygwin.com.
23 March 2006. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
6. "musl libc" (http://www.etalabs.net/musl/). Etalabs.net. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
7. Other built-in functions provided by GCC(https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.1.1/gcc/Other-Builtins.html#Other-Buil
tins), GCC Manual
8. "Compiling with cc" (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/tools-compiling.htm
l). Retrieved 2013-03-02.
9. "ISO/IEC TR 24731-1: Extensions to the C Library
, Part I: Bounds-checking interfaces"(http://www.open-std.org/JTC
1/SC22/WG14/www/docs/n1225.pdf)(PDF). open-std.org. 2007-03-28. Retrieved 2014-03-13.
10. "ISO/IEC WDTR 24731-2: Extensions to the C Library
, Part II: Dynamic Allocation Functions"(http://www.open-std.or
g/JTC1/SC22/WG14/www/docs/n1337.pdf)(PDF). open-std.org. 2008-08-10. Retrieved 2014-03-13.
11. Do you use the TR 24731 'safe' functions in your C code?(https://stackoverflow.com/questions/372980/do-you-use-t
he-tr-24731-safe-functions-in-your-c-code)- Stack overflow
12. "Austin Group Review of ISO/IEC WDTR 24731"(http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1106.txt).
Retrieved 28 October 2011.
13. "math_error - detecting errors from mathematical functions"(http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/math_error
.7.ht
ml). man7.org. 2008-08-11. Retrieved 2014-03-13.
14. "tree" (http://man.freebsd.org/tree). Man.freebsd.org. 2007-12-27. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
15. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/sys/sys/tree.h"(http://bxr.su/o/sys/sys/tree.h). bxr.su.
16. "queue" (http://man.freebsd.org/queue). Man.freebsd.org. 2011-05-13. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
17. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/sys/sys/queue.h"(http://bxr.su/o/sys/sys/queue.h). bxr.su.
18. "fgetln" (http://man.freebsd.org/fgetln). Man.freebsd.org. 1994-04-19. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
19. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/lib/libc/stdio/fgetln.c"(http://bxr.su/o/lib/libc/stdio/fgetln.c#fgetln).
bxr.su.
20. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/include/stdio.h"(http://bxr.su/o/include/stdio.h). bxr.su.
21. "fts" (http://man.freebsd.org/fts). Man.freebsd.org. 2012-03-18. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
22. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/include/fts.h"(http://bxr.su/o/include/fts.h). bxr.su.
23. "db" (http://man.freebsd.org/db). Man.freebsd.org. 2010-09-10. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
24. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/include/db.h"(http://bxr.su/o/include/db.h). bxr.su.
25. Miller, Todd C. and Theo de Raadt.strlcpy and strlcat - consistent, safe, string copy and concatenation(http://www.u
senix.org/events/usenix99/millert.html). Proceedings of the 1999 USENIX Annual T echnical Conference, June 6–11,
1999, pp. 175–178.
26. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/lib/libc/string/strlcat.c"
(http://bxr.su/o/lib/libc/string/strlcat.c). bxr.su.
27. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/lib/libc/string/strlcpy
.c" (http://bxr.su/o/lib/libc/string/strlcpy.c).
bxr.su.
28. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/lib/libc/string/strncat.c"
(http://bxr.su/o/lib/libc/string/strncat.c).
bxr.su.
29. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/lib/libc/string/strncpy
.c" (http://bxr.su/o/lib/libc/string/strncpy.c).
bxr.su.
30. "err" (http://man.freebsd.org/err). Man.freebsd.org. 2012-03-29. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
31. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/include/err
.h" (http://bxr.su/o/include/err.h). bxr.su.
32. "vis(3)" (http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=vis&sektion=3&apropos=0&manpath=FreeBSD+9.1-RELEASE)
.
Man.FreeBSD.org. Retrieved 14 September 2013.
33. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/lib/libc/gen/vis.c"(http://bxr.su/o/lib/libc/gen/vis.c#vis). bxr.su.
34. "Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/include/vis.h"(http://bxr.su/o/include/vis.h). bxr.su.
35. "The Python Standard Library: 6.9. File Objects"(https://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#bltin-file-objects)
.
Docs.python.org. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
36. "libc" (https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/libc/index.html)
. Rust Crates. Retrieved 31 July 2016.

Further reading
Plauger, P. J. (1992). The Standard C library. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-131509-9.

External links
The C Library Reference Guide
Handy list of which headers are in which standard
Microsoft C Run-Time Libraries on MSDN
NetBSD C libraries manual and full C library source
Manual pages for the original C standard libraries in Unix

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