Hacker News with Generative AI: C

Understanding Memory Management, Part 4: Rust Ownership and Borrowing (educatedguesswork.org)
This is the fourth post in my planned multipart series on memory management. Part I covers the basics of memory allocation and how it works in C, and parts II and III covered the basics of C++ memory management, including RAII and smart pointers.
Programming, Memory Management, Rust, C++, C
5 points by ekr____ 3 days ago | 0 comments
Why is this site built with C (marcelofern.com)
Learning from these two past mistakes, I came up with a set of requirements for my next (and hopefully final) website:
Programming Languages, Website Development, C
156 points by todsacerdoti 3 days ago | 132 comments
Writing a Bash builtin in C to parse INI configs (mbuki-mvuki.org)
Shell languages such as Bash excel at certain tasks, such as gluing programs together or quickly automating a set of command line steps. In contrast to those strengths, using a Shell to parse an INI config file is a bit like writing a poem in mud, you might succeed, but the result will probably be inscrutable and your swear jar will be full!
Bash, C, INI Files, Programming, Configuration Management
30 points by namanyayg 5 days ago | 3 comments
C and C++ prioritize performance over correctness (2023) (swtch.com)
The original ANSI C standard, C89, introduced the concept of “undefined behavior,” which was used both to describe the effect of outright bugs like accessing memory in a freed object and also to capture the fact that existing implementations differed about handling certain aspects of the language, including use of uninitialized values, signed integer overflow, and null pointer handling.
Programming Languages, Software Development, C, C++, Standards
92 points by endorphine 5 days ago | 126 comments
Show HN: I made a C program to create a vanity SHA-1 hash for a text file (github.com)
Programming, Security, Cryptography, Show HN, C
58 points by keepamovin 6 days ago | 24 comments
Let's Build a Simple Database (cstack.github.io)
I’m building a clone of sqlite from scratch in C in order to understand, and I’m going to document my process as I go.
Programming, Databases, C, Software Development, Open Source
6 points by ibobev 12 days ago | 0 comments
The earliest versions of the first C compiler known to exist (github.com/mortdeus)
The earliest versions of the very first c compiler known to exist in the wild written by the late legend himself dmr.
Programming, History, C, Software History
375 points by diginova 13 days ago | 173 comments
Stupid Smart Pointers in C (kevinalbs.com)
Managing memory in C is difficult and error prone. C++ solves this with smart pointers like std::unique_ptr and std::shared_ptr. This article demonstrates a proof-of-concept (aka stupid) smart pointer in C with very little code. Along the way we'll look at the layout of the 32-bit x86 call stack and write assembly in a C program.
C, Programming, Memory Management, Software Development, Pointers
146 points by seansh 17 days ago | 164 comments
Implementing Generic Types in C (btmc.substack.com)
One of the most annoying things about programming in C is the lack of support for generic types, also known as parametric polymorphism.
C, Programming, Generics
89 points by sirwhinesalot 18 days ago | 44 comments
The Defer Technical Specification: It Is Time (thephd.dev)
After the Graz, Austria February 2025 WG14 Meeting, I am now confident in the final status of the defer TS, and it is now time.
Programming Languages, C, Standards
11 points by todsacerdoti 18 days ago | 2 comments
A Guide to Undefined Behavior in C and C++ (2010) (regehr.org)
Programming languages typically make a distinction between normal program actions and erroneous actions. For Turing-complete languages we cannot reliably decide offline whether a program has the potential to execute an error; we have to just run it and see.
C, C++, Programming Languages, Software Development, Undefined Behavior
79 points by GarethX 21 days ago | 64 comments
Show HN: Object-Oriented Programming with ANSI-C (github.com/shichao-an)
Sources for "Object-Oriented Programming with ANSI-C" (rerelease 02-01-04 and 14-01-03) Copyright (c) 1993 Axel T. Schreiner, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
Programming Languages, Object-Oriented Programming, C, Open Source
3 points by swatson741 21 days ago | 0 comments
Reverse engineering OpenAI code execution to make it run C and JavaScript (twitter.com)
Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot.
Reverse engineering, OpenAI, Programming Languages, C, JavaScript
289 points by benswerd 21 days ago | 73 comments
I stopped everything and started writing C again (kmx.io)
I've been a good student for 5 years at a French computer school. I've been a good freelance developer for 20 years. I've used Ruby on Rails exclusively however never writing my own code always for clients.
Programming Languages, C, Personal Projects, Software Development
404 points by dvrj101 22 days ago | 454 comments
Dmap: A C hashmap that's stupid simple and surprisingly fast (github.com/jamesnolanverran)
Dmap is a flexible, lightweight, zero-friction dynamic hashmap implementation in C, designed to be user-friendly without sacrificing performance.
C, Hashmaps, Data Structures, Performance, Software
15 points by birdculture 23 days ago | 2 comments
C-Language.org (c-language.org)
C is a general-purpose high-level programming language suitable for low-level programming, in other words: a system programming language.
Programming Languages, C, System Programming
6 points by cyber1 23 days ago | 0 comments
Show HN: I built a JSON and JSON5 parser with MISRA C conformance (railgunlabs.com)
Programming, Software, C, JSON, MISRA
6 points by hgs3 25 days ago | 4 comments
Rust inadequate for text compression codecs? (palaiologos.rocks)
I wrote this blog post to answer a frequent question that I receive from strangers on the internet: why do I choose to implement codecs in C? The answer is far from straightforward; if you are interested in the details, please read on.
Programming, Rust, C, Text Compression
89 points by todsacerdoti 26 days ago | 127 comments
Exploring Polymorphism in C: Lessons from Linux and FFmpeg's Code Design (2019) (leandromoreira.com)
Learn how Linux/FFmpeg C partial codebase is organized to be extensible and act as if it were meant to have “polymorphism”. Specifically, we’re going to briefly explore how Linux concept of everything is a file works at the source code level as well as how FFmpeg can add support fast and easy for new formats and codecs.
Programming, C, Linux, FFmpeg, Design Patterns
233 points by dreampeppers99 27 days ago | 125 comments
Abusing C to implement JSON parsing with struct methods (xnacly.me)
Build a JSON parser in cInstead of using by itself functions: attach functions to a struct and use these as methodsmake it C issue family free (segfaults, leaks, stack overflows, etc…)provide an ergonomic API
C, JSON, Programming, Software Engineering, Struct
118 points by ingve 32 days ago | 70 comments
Imposing memory security in C [video] (fosdem.org)
They say that Rust is going to replace C. I don't believe that and I wanna share how we're doing memory-safe operations in BIRD's C code with no need to enforce this by the language paradigm. It's obviously possible to override that, yet with the right policies and processes in place, it is almost impossible.
C, Memory Security, Programming Languages, Software Development
64 points by transpute 34 days ago | 99 comments
Standard proposal for memory-Safety in C (2024) [pdf] (open-std.org)
Programming Languages, C, Memory Safety, Standardization
4 points by todsacerdoti 36 days ago | 0 comments
Zlib-Rs Is Not Only Safer but Now Outperforming Zlib C Implementations (phoronix.com)
Zlib-rs as a Rust programming language implementation of the Zlib file format for better safety is now beginning to outperform the C implementations of the widely-used Zlib.
Rust, Compression, Performance, Software, C
63 points by mrpotato 37 days ago | 17 comments
Ask HN: A retrofitted C dialect? (ycombinator.com)
Hi I'm Anqur, a senior software engineer with different backgrounds where development in C was often an important part of my work. E.g.<p>1) Game: A Chinese/Vietnam game with C/C++ for making server/client, Lua for scripting [1]. 2) Embedded systems: Switch/router with network stack all written in C [2]. 3) (Networked) file system: Ceph FS client, which is a kernel module.
Programming Languages, C, Software Engineering
55 points by anqurvanillapy 40 days ago | 77 comments
Julia: C codegen considered unnecessary: go directly to binary, do not pass C (arxiv.org)
Since time immemorial an old adage has always seemed to ring true: you cannot use a high-level productive programming language like Python or R for real-time control and embedded-systems programming, you must rewrite your program in C.
Programming Languages, Julia, C, Real-time Systems
4 points by hackandthink 43 days ago | 1 comments
F8 – an 8 bit architecture designed for C and memory efficiency [video] (fosdem.org)
Even in modern devices, 8-bit processors are found, but the architectures used are often not well-suited to programming in high-level languages, such as C. E.g. MCS-51 (8051, 8052) based microcontrollers in the Realtek WiFi chipsets. The f8 is an architecture based on the experience and lessons learned from maintaining Small Device C Compiler (SDCC) and the many 8-bit architectures it supports.
Hardware, Programming, C, Microcontrollers, 8-bit Architecture
79 points by mpweiher 44 days ago | 49 comments
Type safe variadic printf (stranger.systems)
While C can provide "convenient" string formatting by having hideously unsafe variadics, and dynamic languages, like python, can do the same, many type safe languages, such as Rust, are forced to provide such functionality through the use of a macro. Dependently typed languages, like Idris, can provide a printf like formatting interface, while maintaining both memory and type safety, without the need for macros. We will explore this by implementing a simplified version of printf in Idris from scratch.
Programming, Idris, Type Safety, Function Programming, C
20 points by todsacerdoti 47 days ago | 5 comments
Zig; what I think after months of using it (strongly-typed-thoughts.net)
Ah, Zig. I have a love-hate relationship with this one. A “new” (reading: appeared a couple years ago, already — yes, already), language with high ambitions. Zig was made to run at low-level, with a simple design to solve many problems C has (macros, allocators, error handling, more powerful types like baked-in tagged unions and bitsets, a better build system, no hidden control flow, etc.).
Programming Languages, Software Development, C, Zig
197 points by uaksom 57 days ago | 175 comments
No-Panic Rust: A Nice Technique for Systems Programming (reverberate.org)
Can Rust replace C? This is a question that has been on my mind for many years, as I created and now am tech lead for upb, a C library for Protocol Buffers. There is an understandable push to bring memory safety to all parts of the software stack, and this would suggest a port of upb to Rust.
Rust, Systems Programming, Programming Languages, C
204 points by chmaynard 58 days ago | 138 comments
I Wrote a WebAssembly VM in C (irreducible.io)
For the last 6 months, I’ve been spending my (limited) free time on evenings and weekends writing a WebAssembly VM in C.
WebAssembly, Programming, C, Virtual Machines
331 points by irreducible 58 days ago | 94 comments