The correct designation is "ISO/IEC TR 24731-1", which is in publication. Mr Woodgate is correct that this is not a published std; it is a Technical Report of JTC1/SC22/WG14, and has not been incorporated into the C language standard (IEC 9899). The WG recognizes that the C99 language standard should not (unlike the constant wholesale changes to product safety stds) necessarily be revised, but that an 'alternative' path to safer code should be formally documented. Let the flames begin...
In any case, industrial programmers and compliance engineers ignore these IEC/ISO Working Group reports at their own peril. For example, this WG has also published some very important papers on Sequence Points, a common point of failure for trans-platform code, and buffer overruns - the most common entry point for malware. ISO/IEC TR 24731 defines a version of the C standard function libraries intended to be reliable replacements for library functions that are known to not be safe; e.g. strcpy(), strcat(), strncpy(), strncat(), gets(), fileopen(), etc. I suppose the "most safe" C is defined in the MISRA guide, which has been somewhat controversial. The bottom line is that code cannot provide an inherently safe device. luck, Brian > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of John > Woodgate > Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 8:45 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Interlock Circuits Firmware/Silicon Controlled > > In message <[email protected]>, > dated Fri, > 20 Jul 2007, Brian O'Connell <[email protected]> writes: > > >IEC R 24731, > > That looks highly unlikely to me. The IEC web site doesn't > recognize it. > -- > OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try www.jmwa.demon.co.uk and www.isce.org.uk > There are benefits from being irrational - just ask the > square root of 2. > John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________
