How to develop C with Visual Studio 2010?

Question

Is there a way to develop pure ANSI C with Visual Studio 2010?

Solution 1

Yes, it's possible. MSDN provides some information here: ANSI C Compliance.

Step one is setting the compiler to produce C code, rather than C++ code. Do that from your project's Properties. Expand the C/C++ header, and click on "Advanced". Set the "Compile As" property to "Compile as C Code" (this is the same as specifying the /TC switch on the command line). Even easier is to just name your files with a *.c extension.

Step two is disabling Microsoft's extensions to the ANSI standards. These are governed by the /Za and /Ze compiler switches. You can find these in your project's Properties, as well. /Za causes the compiler to emit an error for language constructs that are not compliant with the ANSI standard. The /Ze switch enables Microsoft-specific extensions; you want to make sure that this one is turned off.

Although I don't believe that Microsoft fully supports the C99 standard. See (and vote for!) this bug report on MS Connect, this blog entry from the VC++ team, and this page for a concrete example of where that lack of support becomes evident. It does, however, have full support for the C90 standard.

Solution 2

Via changing the file extension to .c will get you started but here are also some changes to the project file. See here for details: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/829488/en-us

There is also a good podcast on that: http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Sam/C-Language-Programming-with-Visual-Studio-2010-Ultimate-Pro-or-VC-Express