C

The Linux kernel and the GNU userland are written primarily in C.

Arch Linux uses the GNU C Library (glibc) as the C standard library; it is a dependency of the base meta package.

You can use the GNU toolchain or the LLVM toolchain to develop software in C, C++ or Objective-C.

Useful tools

• Valgrind — Tool to help find memory-management problems in programs.

https://valgrind.org/ || valgrind

• distcc — Distributed compiling GCC front-end.

https://github.com/distcc/distcc || distcc

• rr — Lightweight recording and deterministic debugging tool for C/C++, uses GDB.

https://rr-project.org/ || rr^AUR

Static code analyzers

• Cppcheck — A tool for static C/C++ code analysis.

http://cppcheck.sourceforge.net/ || cppcheck

• Clang has the scan-build static analyzer.
• Splint — A tool for statically checking C programs for security vulnerabilities and coding mistakes.

https://repo.or.cz/splint-patched.git || splint

• ikos — Static analyzer for C and C++ developed by NASA

https://github.com/NASA-SW-VnV/ikos || ikos^AUR

Alternative compilers

• TCC — Tiny C Compiler, claims to be faster than GCC.

https://bellard.org/tcc/ || tcc

• ACK — Amsterdam Compiler Kit.

http://tack.sourceforge.net/ || ack-git^AUR

• PCC — Portable C Compiler.

http://pcc.ludd.ltu.se/ || pcc^AUR

• SDCC — Retargettable ANSI C compiler.

https://sdcc.sourceforge.net/ || sdcc

See also Wikipedia:List of compilers#C compilers.

Alternative libc implementations

• dietlibc — a libc optimized for small size

https://www.fefe.de/dietlibc/ || dietlibc^AUR

• musl — Lightweight implementation of C standard library.

https://musl.libc.org/ || musl

Libraries

• FFmpeg - includes libav, the audio and video library (not to be confused with the FFmpeg fork of the same name).
• GLib — Low-level system library by GNOME, includes GObject and GIO.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GLib || glib2

• GStreamer – pipeline-based multimedia framework

See also:

• GTK/Development#C
• Desktop notifications#C
• Libcanberra#C
• Archiving and compression#Compression libraries
• Wikipedia:Category:C (programming language) libraries
• A list of open source C libraries

See also

• man pages in section 2 for system calls
• man pages in section 3 for library functions
• GCC and Make – Compiling, Linking and Building C/C++ Applications
• SEI CERT C Coding Standard
• #C IRC channel