Standards

There are a number of "official" standards for the behavior of portable applications among Unix and Unix-like systems. The first entry is the current POSIX standard. The rest are the formal standards for the C and C++ programming languages.

1. IEEE Standard 1003.1-2004: Standard for information Technology Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX®). IEEE, New York, NY, USA, 2004.

   This is the POSIX standard. It combines both the system call interface standard and the shell and utilities standard in one document. The standard consists of several volumes: Base Definitions (Volume 1), System Interfaces (Volume 2), Shell and Utilities (Volume 3), and Rationale (Volume 4).

   The standard may be ordered from http://www.standards.ieee.org on CD-ROM (Product number SE95238, ISBN 0-7381-4049-X) or as PDF (Product number SS95238, ISBN 0-7381-4048-1).

2. X3 Secretariat: Standard The C Language. X3J11/90-013. ISO Standard ISO/IEC 9899. Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturers Association. Washington DC, USA, 1990.

3. International Standard: Programming Languages C. ISO Standard ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E). Information Technology Industry Council, Washington DC, USA, 1999.

   These two documents are the 1990 and 1999 standards for the C language. It generally takes five or more years from when a language standard is published until compilers for that version become widely available.

4. X3 Secretariat: International Standard The C++ Language. X3J16-14882. Information Technology Council (NSITC). Washington DC, USA, 1998.

   This is the initial standard for the C++ programming language, used by most C++ compilers as of this writing.

5. International Standard: Programming Languages C++. ISO Standard ISO/IEC 14882-2003. Information Technology Industry Council, Washington DC, USA, 2003.

   A revision of the previous document.