C11 Annex K safe functions

February 21, 2023

The C11 standard defines optional bounds-checking functions with an “_s” suffix in their names in Annex K. There are numerous reasons why these functions aren’t implemented in popular compilers / stdlib except MSVC. The most salient points are in the field experience note that observes that static analysis, dynamic analysis, address sanitization, etc. provide benefits that are largely beyond what the secure functions could provide, without the end user runtime penalty.

For totally new projects, one could consider coding languages that have inherently more secure memory access such as Rust. Or for a less dramatic change, using C++ for string-heavy portions of the project where the string class can be easier to use than C char.