This document describes the coding standards we’d like to have for all of our C code. It has rules for both formatting and content, together with occasional rationale (or rationalization) for those rules. Although you may disagree with many of the decisions made here, please try to swallow your indignation and conform to these standards. It is very important that everyone can read and understand the software, so uniformity is a goal. Also, some of the style suggestions will help you avoid the pitfalls of the C language.
There are many rules and suggestions here. Too many, it seems, to satisfy while still getting your code to actually work. This is intentional – it is better to work under too many constraints than too few. Your code will look better if you have spent your time deciding on which stylistic rule to relax than if you have been making choices in a vacuum.
The coding style espoused here is strict and traditional. Some of the requirements (especially 8-space tabs and non-nested include files) will cause grief for many programs, but they will not be a problem for most well-written programs. This style makes poorly-written programs blatantly ugly. It will occasionally inconvenience well-written code, but that is a tradeoff we accept in order to encourage good style in general.
Lastly, like rules of etiquette, these guidelines are not an end in themselves, but rather they attempt to move you to be mindful of your actions, for they are not private – they affect others (future readers and maintainers), and ultimately you are responsible to a higher authority (ISO WG14).
This document is stolen from the work of Mike Haertel, Richard O’Keefe, and Rob Pike.
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