Are there any Free C Standard Documents ?

[Nitin Bhardwaj]

Hi All,

Are there any sites on the internet, where I can get to download an
electronic version of the ANSI C89 Standard or the ISO C99 Standard
free-of-cost .I'm a student from Delhi, India and currently I cannot
afford that much cost of buying it from ANSI or ISO !

Thanks
Nitin

 

[Randy Howard]

Hi All,

Are there any sites on the internet, where I can get to download an
electronic version of the ANSI C89 Standard or the ISO C99 Standard
free-of-cost .I'm a student from Delhi, India and currently I cannot
afford that much cost of buying it from ANSI or ISO !

$18. Come on.

 

[Richard Bos]

Are there any sites on the internet, where I can get to download an
electronic version of the ANSI C89 Standard or the ISO C99 Standard
free-of-cost .

Not AFAIK, and probably not legally. However, you can download the last
public draft of C99, which has a few small differences from the actual
Standard but is nearly as good for a student, from
<http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n869/>.

Richard

 

[Joona I Palaste]

$18. Come on.

Besides, the fact that someone can't afford something does not, by
itself, mean that they should get it for free. I can't afford a new
Mercedes Benz. Does anyone know where I could get one for free?

 

[Emmanuel Delahaye]

$18. Come on.

Can represent a lot of money in certain parts of the world. Unfortunately,
export prices are the same, whatever the country. It's unfair.

 

[Gwar]

That's 853 rupees. That's more than a week's wages for a lot of folks
there.

OP: Get your whole gang together, take a collection, buy a copy, make
copies, & go about your business.

 

[Dan Pop]

$18. Come on.

Do you realise what $18 could mean to a poor Indian student?

Dan

 

[Prafulla H]

$18. Come on.

That makes it approx (18x50) Rs.900 in India; my two months pocket
money. Simply too much for students in this part of the world.

 

[Dan Pop]

Besides, the fact that someone can't afford something does not, by
itself, mean that they should get it for free. I can't afford a new
Mercedes Benz. Does anyone know where I could get one for free?

Immature logic, as usual, in your case. The OP didn't imply that he is
entitled to a free copy, because he cannot afford the price. He merely
explained why he is interested in free copies of the C standards and his
explanation makes perfect sense.

And going back to your Mercedes Benz analogy: since you can't afford a
new one, you must put up with whatever you can currently afford.
Likewise, for the case of the Indian student, there are freely available
(and, therefore, affordable) copies of the last public draft of both C89
and C99. Although they're perfectly adequate for the needs of a student,
neither Randy, nor you bothered to point the OP in the right direction.
Could it be that you're still despising the Indian students?

To the OP:

C89: http://cern.ch/dan.pop/ansi.c
C99: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n869/

Dan

 

[Arthur J. O'Dwyer]

[...] there are freely available
(and, therefore, affordable) copies of the last public draft of both C89
and C99. Although they're perfectly adequate for the needs of a student,
neither Randy, nor you bothered to point the OP in the right direction.
Could it be that you're still despising the Indian students?

Now that was uncalled-for.

Out of curiosity, is there no Indian organization akin to ANSI that
would be allowed to distribute copies of ISO documents in India? That
would seem to be the logical way to provide cheap standards documents
to India (although they might be swamped by long-distance orders from
price-minded Westerners!

To the OP:

C89: http://cern.ch/dan.pop/ansi.c
C99: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n869/

Yes indeed.

-Arthur

 

[Joona I Palaste]

Immature logic, as usual, in your case. The OP didn't imply that he is
entitled to a free copy, because he cannot afford the price. He merely
explained why he is interested in free copies of the C standards and his
explanation makes perfect sense.

*I* thought he implied he was entitled to a free copy, because he
downright asked for one, and the only explanation he gave was that he
can't afford to pay for a non-free copy. He didn't outright say he was
entitled to a free copy, but he certainly implied it, at least
indirectly.

And going back to your Mercedes Benz analogy: since you can't afford a
new one, you must put up with whatever you can currently afford.
Likewise, for the case of the Indian student, there are freely available
(and, therefore, affordable) copies of the last public draft of both C89
and C99. Although they're perfectly adequate for the needs of a student,
neither Randy, nor you bothered to point the OP in the right direction.

I did not remember there were these documents.

Could it be that you're still despising the Indian students?

Nothing of the sort. Don't jump to conclusions, Dan. I would have
written the same response if he was of any other nationality. Even
Finnish. I have had heated arguments with other Finns on international
newsgroups before.

To the OP:

C89: http://cern.ch/dan.pop/ansi.c
C99: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n869/

Thanks for helping the OP, Dan.

--
/-- Joona Palaste ([email protected]) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"'So called' means: 'There is a long explanation for this, but I have no
time to explain it here.'"
- JIPsoft

 

[Dan Pop]

*I* thought he implied he was entitled to a free copy, because he
downright asked for one, and the only explanation he gave was that he
can't afford to pay for a non-free copy.

Where did he ask for a free copy? He merely asked whether free copies
are available and explained why he is looking for free copies. BIG
difference.

He didn't outright say he was
entitled to a free copy, but he certainly implied it, at least
indirectly.

I can see no such implication, not even indirectly, so please explain
it to me.

Imagine that you were that Indian student: what part of the message
would you have phrased differently and why?

I did not remember there were these documents.

Do you really expect anyone to believe you? We're talking about them
quite regularly and you're a newsgroup regular. Even if you didn't know
the exact URLs, you could still mention their existence and suggest
googling for them.

Nothing of the sort. Don't jump to conclusions, Dan. I would have
written the same response if he was of any other nationality. Even
Finnish. I have had heated arguments with other Finns on international
newsgroups before.

That's far from obvious, or even credible: such requests are posted on a
more or less regular basis, yet you didn't react until an Indian posted
one. Strange coincidence (given your past record), isn't it?

Dan

 

[Dan Pop]

Can represent a lot of money in certain parts of the world. Unfortunately,
export prices are the same, whatever the country. It's unfair.

Imagine that you were the exporter. Could you afford exporting under cost
to the countries that couldn't afford the right price that would allow you
to stay in business?

Life itself is not fair. I've spent most of my life on the unfair side,
so I should know what I'm talking about...

Dan

 

[Ben Pfaff]

Can represent a lot of money in certain parts of the world. Unfortunately,
export prices are the same, whatever the country. It's unfair.

So he should buy it from the Indian Standards Institute or
whatever his national standardization body is. Perhaps they have
it available at a locally reasonable price.

 

[Dan Pop]

So he should buy it from the Indian Standards Institute or
whatever his national standardization body is. Perhaps they have
it available at a locally reasonable price.

Be prepared for a big disappointment if you expect BIS to work like ANSI.
Go to http://www.bis.org.in/ and see what you can get from them.

Don't expect the third world to work according to your standards [sic].

Dan

 

[Alan Balmer]

That makes it approx (18x50) Rs.900 in India; my two months pocket
money. Simply too much for students in this part of the world.

Do you have school libraries? How much are your textbooks?

 

[Alan Balmer]

Immature logic, as usual, in your case. The OP didn't imply that he is
entitled to a free copy, because he cannot afford the price.

You pass up no opportunity, as usual, to gratuitously insult Joona.

The OP did make it plain that he was looking for a free copy while
being perfectly aware that the document is sold, not given away. In
that context, the inference I draw is that he should be entitled to
steal it because he can't afford to buy it. I can certainly understand
it if Joona drew the same conclusion.

To the OP:

C89: http://cern.ch/dan.pop/ansi.c
C99: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n869/

This is a useful response, so long as the OP remembers that this is
not the actual standard, but very close.

 

[Keith Thompson]

Besides, the fact that someone can't afford something does not, by
itself, mean that they should get it for free. I can't afford a new
Mercedes Benz. Does anyone know where I could get one for free?

Come on guys, it was a perfectly reasonable question. The OP wasn't
saying he's entitled to a free copy of the standard, he was just
asking whether one is available. (The answer happens to be "no".)

Richard Bos pointed out that the N869 draft is available, and is
probably close enough to the standard for most purposes.

 

[Keith Thompson]

That's 853 rupees. That's more than a week's wages for a lot of folks
there.

OP: Get your whole gang together, take a collection, buy a copy, make
copies, & go about your business.

Making copies would violate the license you have to agree to when you
buy the first copy.

 

[Mark F. Haigh]

Do you realise what $18 could mean to a poor Indian student?

No.

Mark F. Haigh
(e-mail address removed)