alt Hacker NewsBuying the ANSI C standard still costs about $300. Same for C++.
https://webstore.ansi.org/standards/iso/isoiec98992024?sourc...
Nobody does it. gcc/clang implement it from the "drafts", which are published online due to the need to discuss them prior to standardization.
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Strictly speaking it's the ISO C standard. ISO issues each new edition of the standard, and ANSI adopts it.
This was reversed for the first standard, which ANSI published in 1989; ISO adopted it, with editorial changes, in 1990. The term "ANSI C" usually (not entirely correctly) refers to the 1989 standard. If you want to refer to a particular version, it's best to refer to "ISO C" and the date (1990, 1999, 2011, 2023).
The money you pay for a copy of the standard doesn't go to the people who do the work of writing it, who are either volunteers or paid by their employers.
It used to be 18 dollars in the ANSI webstore for quite some time.
Also, you can look at smaller European countries putting their national cover page on it, and selling it cheaper. It’s the same standard, in English.
The C standard is only a bit cheaper at the Lithuanian agency: https://eshop.lsd.lt/public#!/product/info/0a640332-9273-166...
Sometimes it‘s much cheaper: the Germans sell IEC 62443-4-2 for 400 Euros, the Estonians for 40 Euros:
https://www.dinmedia.de/de/norm/csa-iec-62443-4-2/331021994?...
https://www.evs.ee/et/evs-en-iec-62443-4-2-2019