2018 update of Embedded C Coding Standard

First published in 2008, the rules of Barr Group's Embedded C Coding Standard are followed by embedded software developers who want to reduce time spent during the debugging stage of their projects as well as improve the maintainability and portability of their source code. Followers of earlier versions of the BARR-C coding standard will find that little has changed about the rules themselves. Clarifications and additional code examples have been added to make the rules easier to understand and apply. For the 2018 edition, Barr Group has eliminated the few prior conflicts between its rules and those in the MISRA C:2012: Guidelines for the Use of the C Language in Critical Systems.

Many firmware developers choose to combine bug killing stylistic rules from the BARR-C standard with safety guidelines from MISRA C. According to recent industry surveys, BARR-C and MISRA C are the two most widely followed coding standards, with four out of ten professional embedded system designers applying one or both on their current project.

Barr Group CTO Michael Barr, stated: “The Embedded C Coding Standard’s emphasis on defect killing stylistic rules has always complemented MISRA C’s style-less focus on a safer language subset. To ensure that developers are able to seamlessly combine rules from these important standards, we have updated our standard and verified that all of our rules are in harmony with the most recent version of MISRA C.”

Andrew Banks, who is Chairman of the MISRA C Working Group added: “We are pleased that embedded systems engineers are increasingly adopting defect reducing coding standards such as MISRA C and the Embedded C Coding Standard. Now that the guidelines from MISRA can be more easily coupled with the stylistic rules from BARR-C, we look forward to seeing embedded software designers take even greater steps towards improving the safety, security, and overall code quality of their products.”

BARR-C:2018 is immediately available in a free PDF download and in HTML format here. Print copies can be purchased at Amazon.com. In addition, an editable (Microsoft Word) copy of BARR-C:2018 is available for download and license for teams wanting to customise the rules to their project-specific needs.