Is the term "libc" equivalent to "C standard library"?

Asked 2011-04-02T18:02:21.673

I sometimes hear people using the terms "libc" and "C standard library" interchangeably. I understand that "libc" is the name (or part of the names) of many popular C standard library implementations. My guess is that because of the widespread use of these implementations, people started referring to the C standard library in general as "libc" although it is not an official name.

Is it correct to refer to the C standard library as "libc"?

c terminology standard-library libc

Edit Report

2 Answers

"libc" is indeed the name of the implementation. It often includes functions that are not part of the C standard, and might not include functions that are part of the C standard. (A common case of the latter is the Standard C math functions being split into a separate "libm".)

answered 2011-04-02T18:10:21.880

LibC (http://www.gnu.org/s/libc/) is one particular implementation of the C library standard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_standard_library#ISO_Standard).

answered 2011-04-02T18:08:13.733

Is the term "libc" equivalent to "C standard library"?

2 Answers

Your Answer