Coming to Grips with the Terminology

In February of this year, MISRA published an updated version of the world-leading MISRA C guidelines – described as MISRA C:2012 3^rd Edition, 1^st Revision.

This terminology itself appears to have caused some confusion... so let’s take a closer look!

3^rd Edition?

The MISRA “Guidelines for the use of the C language” (MISRA C) was first published in April 1998, with a second edition following in October 2004. Thus MISRA C:2012 is the third edition of the guidelines.

1st Revision?

Both MISRA C:1998 and MISRA C:2004 were subsequently re-issued to consolidate Technical Corrigenda.

For MISRA C:2012, following the publication of Amendment 1 (“Additional Security Guidelines”) and subsequently Technical Corrigendum 1, the MISRA C Working Group decided to consolidate these.

Given that this was a consolidation, an incremental update, the Working Group agreed that it was appropriate to identify the consolidated document as a Revision, rather than a new Edition.

Put simply:

• MISRA C:2012 is the 3^rd Edition of the MISRA C Guidelines
• This is the first Revision of those MISRA C:2012 Guidelines

The Road Ahead

Having consolidated the existing increments, the MISRA C Working Group is now focused on producing enhancements that can address the undesirable features of ISO/IEC 9899:2011 (C11) and ISO/IEC 9899:2018 (C18).

About the Author

Andrew Banks is the current Chairman of the MISRA C Working Group. Approaching 30 years of experience in high-integrity software design and development, he is a Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society, and is also active in the standards community.

In early 2018, Andrew joined Liverpool-based software company LDRA.

Acknowledgements

"MISRA" and "MISRA C" and the triangle logo are registered trademarks of HORIBA MIRA Limited, held on behalf of the MISRA Consortium.