[PATCH 1/5] CodingGuidelines: update for C99

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 7, 2022, 09:30 UTC
Message-ID: <patch-1.5-5ea53989486-20221007T092505Z-avarab@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <cover-0.5-00000000000-20221007T092505Z-avarab@gmail.com>

Since 7bc341e21b5 (git-compat-util: add a test balloon for C99 support, 2021-12-01) we've had a hard dependency on C99, but the prose in CodingGuidelines was written under the assumption that we were using C89 with a few C99 features.

As the updated prose notes we'd still like to hold off on novel C99 features, but let's make it clear that we target that C version, and then enumerate new C99 features that are safe to use.

Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
---
 Documentation/CodingGuidelines | 8 ++++++--
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/CodingGuidelines b/Documentation/CodingGuidelines
index 9fca21cc5f9..386ca0a0d22 100644
--- a/Documentation/CodingGuidelines
+++ b/Documentation/CodingGuidelines
@@ -204,10 +204,14 @@ For C programs:
    by e.g. "echo DEVELOPER=1 >>config.mak".
 
  - We try to support a wide range of C compilers to compile Git with,
-   including old ones.  You should not use features from newer C
+   including old ones.  As of Git v2.35.0 Git requires C99 (we check
+   "__STDC_VERSION__"). You should not use features from a newer C
    standard, even if your compiler groks them.
 
-   There are a few exceptions to this guideline:
+   New C99 features have been phased in gradually, if something's new
+   in C99 but not used yet don't assume that it's safe to use, some
+   compilers we target have only partial support for it. These are
+   considered safe to use:
 
    . since early 2012 with e1327023ea, we have been using an enum
      definition whose last element is followed by a comma.  This, like

-- 
2.38.0.971.ge79ff6d20e7