Questions tagged [c]
C is a general-purpose computer programming language used for operating systems, games and other high performance work.
1,325 questions
1vote
3answers
321views
Is Feeding a Watchdog Timer from an Interrupt Service Routine a Bad Practice?
In an embedded system, I require a watchdog to be able to pass ESD qualifications. Having no experience with watchdogs, I went through this Memfault article. I liked the events "registration"...
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2votes
1answer
148views
What architectural connector is a file descriptor?
The software architecture literature has lots of information on software connectors as in component and connector views of architecture. What kind of connector is a file descriptor? I noticed in the ...
- 67
6votes
4answers
579views
Why is there (practically) no 6-byte integer in common usage?
In Postgres, it used to be quite common to use a 4-byte integer auto field for primary keys, until it started becomming somewhat common to run into the 2147483647 limit of 4-byte integers. Now, it's ...
- 1,093
1vote
3answers
259views
Get call graph / path of C with function pointer
I have a C codebase with function calls made through function pointers. I tried using LLVM AST and IR with Python to generate a function call graph, but handling the function pointer calls requires ...
- 165
0votes
2answers
278views
What should I consider when determining what `ALLOC_MAX` should be in this type of I/O loop?
For, e.g. determining an amount of memory that is safe to allocate for processing file or device with this type of I/O loop: HANDLE hFile /* = file open with GENERIC_READ */; LARGE_INTEGER liSize; ...
1vote
5answers
319views
Anti-pattern? Double header and exposed implementation detail
Consider that I've implemented SHA-256 hashing in C as incrementally updated IUF (init-update-finalize) working context and 3 subroutines. To use it in free-standing environment, or to efficiently use ...
- 307
6votes
2answers
648views
When the stack frames become computationally expensive
I've been experimenting with different data structures and algorithms in Python, Java and C to see in what circumstances function/method inlining could bring meaningful gains in terms of the execution ...
- 171
2votes
1answer
167views
C++: Good approach to handle libxml2 resource management in a wrapper
I try to write a C++ wrapper to a well-known C library, libxml2. In libxml2, an xmlDocPtr represent an XML document and xmlNodePtr represents a node. An xmlDocPtr contains a root xmlNodePtr and every ...
2votes
3answers
228views
How to decouple spagheti code for unit tests [duplicate]
A little background on the project: we as a company receive a spaghetti source code, and into that we add even more spaghetti code. So with that I want to say that complete restructuring and ...
0votes
4answers
2kviews
Is it a bad practice to return an enum without an enum return type?
I'm specifically asking about C. Example: enum numbers { EVEN, ODD }; int isFiveEvenOrOdd(void) { if (5 % 2 == ODD) return ODD; else return EVEN; } int main(void) { printf("%...
4votes
4answers
1kviews
Is updating a macro value in the Xcode preprocessor's macros violating the open–closed principle?
For example, for some Xcode projects, if I have some places that defines a number at some .cpp files: const int PAGE_MAX=5; and a new requirement comes that needs to change PAGE_MAX, I need to modify ...
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2votes
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417views
How would I go about writing my own implementation of Win32 functions?
So I am currently coding a C program for Windows and come across a little bit of a problem. I've been compiling using the mingw-w64 toolchain. In my program, I am attempting to remove as many ...
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0votes
1answer
184views
Elegant way in C to store many parameters with default value and current value in embedded flash
I'm programming an embedded system that has a number of user configurable parameters, which are stored in flash memory. I have to store a default value for each parameter as well as the user settings. ...
- 175
3votes
1answer
280views
C++ vs C console output idioms
I'm struggling to understand pros and cons of the C++ and C approaches to console output. C++ uses the stream approach with concatenation of operator<<, while for "C approach" I mean a ...
- 169
0votes
2answers
186views
How might encapsulated source be broken into into multiple files?
I have a project where there is a primary, high-level, opaque struct with many functions that operate on it. Maybe I am simulating a CPU. How might the corresponding source code be organized? One way ...
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