C Standard Library - Standardization

Standardization

The original C language provided no built-in functions such as I/O operations, unlike traditional languages such as COBOL and Fortran. Over time, user communities of C shared ideas and implementations of what is now called C standard libraries. Many of these ideas were incorporated eventually into the definition of the standardized C language.

Both Unix and C were created at AT&T's Bell Laboratories in the late 1960s and early 1970s. During the 1970s the C language became increasingly popular. Many universities and organizations began creating their own variants of the language for their own projects. By the beginning of the 1980s compatibility problems between the various C implementations became apparent. In 1983 the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) formed a committee to establish a standard specification of C known as "ANSI C". This work culminated in the creation of the so-called C89 standard in 1989. Part of the resulting standard was a set of software libraries called the ANSI C standard library.