GNU coding standards: Difference between revisions

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The consistent treatment of blocks as statements (for the purpose of indentation) is a very distinctive feature of the GNU C code formatting style; as is the mandatory space before parentheses. All code formatted in the GNU style has the property that each closing brace, bracket or parenthesis appears ''to the right'' of its corresponding opening delimiter, or in the same column.

AsBeing atightly generalintegrated with the GNU principlesystem, [[GNU Emacs]] canprovides beautomatic consideredformatting of C code to match the GNU coding standards.<ref>{{bycite web whom|dateurl=Septemberhttps://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/ccmode.html#index-GNU-style|title=CC 2016Mode Manual|access-date=2025-04-08}}</ref> aRather reliablethan authoritymanually on the GNUmodifying code formatting style.in a Asway such,that itstrays isfrom desirable{{accordingthe toGNU whom|date=Septembercoding 2016}}standards, thatthe anyformatted piecelayout of the code thatcan looksbe ugly<!---Opinion?---> when indentedtweaked by Emacswriting is changedit intoin a more Emacs-friendly form—for example, by inserting additional parentheses.

===Splitting long lines===

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There is one form of portability problem though, and that is the fact that the standard makes it clear that a program should run on different [[Central processing unit|CPU]] types. The standard says that GNU doesn't and won't support 16-bit systems, but handling all the different 32- and 64-bit systems is absolutely necessary.

== Gnits standards ==

The Gnits standards are a collection of [[Standardization|standards]] and recommendations for programming, maintaining, and distributing [[software]]. They are published by a group of [[GNU project]] maintainers who call themselves "Gnits", which is short for "GNU nit-pickers". As such, they represent advice, not [[Free Software Foundation]] or [[GNU]] policy, but parts of the Gnits' standards have seen widespread adoption among [[free software]] programmers in general.

The Gnits standards are extensions to, refinements of, and annotations for the [[GNU Standards]]. However, they are in no way normative in GNU; GNU maintainers are not required to follow them. Nevertheless, maintainers and programmers often find in Gnits standards good ideas on the way to follow GNU Standards themselves, as well as tentative, non-official explanations about why some GNU standards were decided the way they are. There are very few discrepancies between Gnits and GNU standards, and they are always well noted as such.

The standards address aspects of [[software architecture]], program behaviour, [[human–computer interaction]], [[C (computer language)|C]] programming, [[Software documentation|documentation]], and [[Software release|software releases]].

As of 2008, the Gnits standards carry a notice that they are moribund and no longer actively maintained, and points readers to the manuals of [[Gnulib]], [[Autoconf]], and [[Automake]], which are said to cover many of the same topics.

== Criticism ==

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The GNU coding standards are primarily used by GNU projects, though its use is not limited to GNU projects alone.

The [[Linux kernel]] strongly discourages this style for kernel code, and refers to the style pejoratively: "First off, I’d suggest printing out a copy of the GNU coding standards, and NOT read it. Burn them, it’s a great symbolic gesture.".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.10/process/coding-style.html|title=Linux kernel coding style — The Linux Kernel documentation|website=www.kernel.org|language=en|access-date=2017-10-12}}</ref> [[Steve McConnell]], in his book [[Code Complete]], also advises against using this style; he marks a code sample which uses it with a "Coding Horror" icon, symbolizing especially dangerous code, and states that it impedes readability by requiring an extra level of indentation for braces.<ref>{{cite book |title=Code Complete: A practical handbook of software construction |last=McConnell |first=Steve |publisher=Microsoft Press |year=2004 |isbn=0-7356-1967-0 |___location=Redmond, WA |pages=[https://archive.org/details/codecomplete0000mcco/page/746 746–747] |author-link=Steve McConnell |url=https://archive.org/details/codecomplete0000mcco/page/746 }}</ref>

== See also ==

{{Portal|Free and open-source software}}

*[[Gnits Standardsstandards]]

*[[Gnits Standards]]

==References==