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I know, that the latest official standard revision is avaliable at:
https://www.iso.org/standard/74528.html

But since the page related to C language Working Group at http://www.open-std.org -
http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG14/
claims, that it is, quote:

the official home of
ISO/ IEC JTC1/SC22/WG14 - C

And its latest update date for now is listed as:

2020-03-30

Why it still says, that the current C standard is C11 (not C17 or C18):

The current C programming language standard (C11) ISO/IEC 9899 was adopted by ISO and IEC in 2011.
?

See a screenshot

Is that just a poor maintainance of that page? Or it is not an official page, as it claims? Or the Working Group does not treat C18 as a true version/revision of the standard, but a "bugfix" for C11 version which is still the latest one?

One more question, which probably relates to the initial one.

Different sources over the web refer to N2176.pdf document as the latest draft version of C18, and even provide a link to it. For example, Wikipedia page about C18 provides a link to an archived version of C17 draft from www.open-std.org, and the content of that pdf document looks like a true N2176 document. However the actual n2176.pdf document from the current www.open-std.org: http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG14/www/docs/n2176.pdf is tricky to see, because it is locked with a password. At the same time the draft versions for the previous revisions are free to see.

Barmar
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Alexander Volkov
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    According to [The ISO page on C18](http://www.iso-9899.info/wiki/The_Standard#C18), "The current standard is ISO/IEC 9899:2018 (aka C17 and C18) -- this version addresses many defects reported for C11. It incorporates TCs (Technical Corrigenda) and does not introduce new language features." – Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні Apr 08 '20 at 23:23
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20181230041359if_/http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/abq/c17_updated_proposed_fdis.pdf – anastaciu Apr 08 '20 at 23:24
  • n2176 is annoying anyway, ctrl-F doesn't find anything with an underscore or hyphen in it amongst other things – M.M Apr 09 '20 at 01:22
  • Why don't you ask *them*? And if you did, what did they answer? – the busybee Apr 09 '20 at 05:53
  • @busybee, you are right: indeed asking _them_ was the thing, which initially came to my mind, but it looked so ridiculous, that I decided I to ask here first. Since the answers here supports the hypothesis that mentioning C11 is just outdated and not intended information there, I wrote to the webmaster address provided at open-std.org and they answered me a couple of days ago that they would have a look, though the pages are not changed at the moment yet. – Alexander Volkov Apr 14 '20 at 14:58
  • This is no longer true; that page now says "_The current C programming language standard (C17) ISO/IEC 9899 was adopted by ISO and IEC in 2018._" I'm voting to close this as Not Reproducible. – Toby Speight Jan 21 '23 at 11:31

2 Answers2

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ISO does not permit committees to publish versions that will become official versions of the standard. This is why we have published all work-in-progress version openly, but not the version that finally made it. If you want to have a good idea what C17 looks like, best would probably to have a look into the "diffmark" version just after C17:

http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n2310.pdf

Jens Gustedt
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  • Thank you very much for the answer! Am I right then, that since the latest drafts for C11 and C99 were freely avaliable, while the one for C17 is not, it means, that the draft for C17 differs from the published version much less than the drafts for C11 and C99? – Alexander Volkov Apr 14 '20 at 15:02
  • The main question isn't why the new standard wasn't published on the website though, it's why does the page still claim C11 to be the 'current' standard? – remmy Sep 10 '21 at 18:54
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The C standard is not an open standard. The ISO working group that you link to may or may not publish various draft versions as open standards. Who makes the call to do that or when/why, I don't know. Perhaps they didn't consider C17 substantial enough.

The official standard is owned by ISO however, and can be obtained from the official ISO site (or your national standard institute).

I'm not sure if C17 N2176 were meant to go public or if it just "leaked" from the working group somehow.

Lundin
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