C language mechanism for error handling and deferred cleanup

Jens Gustedt (1) , Robert C Seacord (2)

1 CAMUS - Compilation pour les Architectures MUlti-coeurS
2 NCC Group

This paper introduces the implementation of a C language mechanism for error handling and deferred cleanup adapted from similar features in the Go programming language.This mechanism improves the proximity, visibility, maintainability, robustness, and security of cleanup and error handling over existing language features.This feature is under consideration for inclusion in the C Standard.The library implementation of the features described by this paper is publiclyavailable under an Open Source License at https://gustedt.gitlabpages.inria.fr/defer/.

Domaines: Langage de programmation [cs.PL]

Jens Gustedt, Robert C Seacord. C language mechanism for error handling and deferred cleanup. SAC 2021 - 36th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing, Mar 2021, Virtual, South Korea. ⟨10.1145/3412841.3442116⟩. ⟨hal-03059076⟩