Good overviews of C11 standard:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C11_(C_standard_revision)
- http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf
- https://smartbear.com/blog/test-and-monitor/c11-a-new-c-standard-aiming-at-safer-programming/
The standard includes several changes to the C99 language and library specifications, such as:
- Alignment specification (
_Alignasspecifier,_Alignofoperator,aligned_allocfunction,<stdalign.h>header file) - The
_Noreturnfunction specifier and the<stdnoreturn.h>header file -
Type-generic expressions using the
_Generickeyword. For example, the following macrocbrt(x)translates tocbrtl(x),cbrt(x)orcbrtf(x)depending on the type ofx:#define cbrt(x) _Generic((x), long double: cbrtl, \ default: cbrt, \ float: cbrtf)(x) -
Multi-threading support (
_Thread_localstorage-class specifier,<threads.h>header including thread creation/management functions, mutex, condition variable and thread-specific storage functionality, as well as the_Atomictype qualifier and<stdatomic.h>for uninterruptible object access). - Improved Unicode support based on the C Unicode Technical Report ISO/IEC TR 19769:2004 (
char16_tandchar32_ttypes for storingUTF-16/UTF-32encoded data, including conversion functions in<uchar.h>and the corresponding u and U string literal prefixes, as well as the u8 prefix forUTF-8encoded literals). - Removal of the
getsfunction, deprecated in the previous C language standard revision, ISO/IEC 9899:1999/Cor.3:2007(E), in favor of a new safe alternative,gets_s. - Bounds-checking interfaces (Annex K).
- Analyzability features (Annex L).
- More macros for querying the characteristics of floating point types, concerning subnormal floating point numbers and the number of decimal digits the type is able to store.
- Anonymous structures and unions, useful when unions and structures are nested, e.g. in
struct T { int tag; union { float x; int n; }; };. - Static assertions, which are evaluated during translation at a later phase than
#ifand#error, when types are understood by the translator. - An exclusive create-and-open mode (
"…x"suffix) foropen. This behaves likeO_CREAT|O_EXCLinPOSIX, which is commonly used for lock files. - The
quick_exitfunction as a third way to terminate a program, intended to do at least minimal deinitialization if termination withexitfails. - Macros for the construction of complex values (partly because
real + imaginary*Imight not yield the expected value ifimaginaryis infinite orNaN).