microsoft/checkedc v0.7-final

Version 0.7 of the Checked C specification

on GitHub

The main improvement in Version 0.7 is adding support for checked strings and checked pointers to null-terminated arrays.

The improvements and changes include:

• Add types for checked null-terminated arrays (nt_checked) and checked pointers to null-terminated arrays (nt_array_ptr)
• Extend typing rules to allow string and array literals to be used where expressions with checked pointer types are expected.
• Require initializers for variables with checked pointer types or struct or array types that contain checked pointers.
• Describe handling of initializer expressions involving checked pointers.
• Revise rules for implicit conversions between checked pointer types. Allow conversions to/from void pointers for now.
• Change syntax for bounds cast operators.
• Remove span type.
• Rename bounds(none) to bounds(unknown).
• Describe static checking rules for return statements.
• Disallow array_ptrs of function types.
• Various wording clean ups.

Caveats:
A non-null value at the upper bound an nt_array_ptr allows the bounds of the nt_array_ptr to be widened. The flow analysis for widening bounds still needs to be described in detail.