Utility library

C includes a variety of utility libraries. These libraries can be broadly divided into two groups:

• language support libraries, and
• general-purpose libraries.

Language support

Language support libraries provide functions that interact closely with language features and support common language idioms.

Type support

Basic types (e.g. size_t , NULL )

Dynamic memory management

(e.g. malloc )

Error handling

Assertions (e.g. assert )

Variadic functions

Support for functions that take an arbitrary number of parameters (via e.g. va_start , va_arg , va_end )

General-purpose utilities

Program utilities

Termination (e.g. abort , atexit ), environment (e.g. system ), signals (e.g. raise )

Date and time

Time tracking (e.g. time , clock )

See also

C++ documentation for Utility library