linux/Documentation/process/programming-language.rst
Linus Torvalds 26a4cfaff8 A handful of small, late-arriving documentation fixes.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
 
 iQFDBAABCgAtFiEEIw+MvkEiF49krdp9F0NaE2wMflgFAmmR/3oPHGNvcmJldEBs
 d24ubmV0AAoJEBdDWhNsDH5Yf9gH/0SJoaO0Bdgh4SoWtE3AMr6Gxnig5dggoto4
 C0lXix/2JcObZvBfmFkE0siCnQidb9XICCtIKlpvW35SgiQ9GsXuMT8oleo7wJii
 eYHdA97gOMXverRfWVg/hb87nmx901/bleJTZsuOrzh96HJGvkXARR85X0fEJo4K
 zfNrhnRUqUv2Onu0b1awmUYg01Yjq/VY3LzY6wRDWHE1Nfz4L0uC9XZs7FTO0UHe
 Q3eivfRgEMtPM64BYFweTR5vk/harx/fcbqMhapvLPaH/K726Uw6SxrXCOMq9dQL
 vVWy0G+yrMllu+1lIJoXnWxPEluYpuBxW/Zshx6WQa+bzA2Q1wA=
 =uUQO
 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Merge tag 'docs-7.0-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/docs/linux

Pull documentation fixes from Jonathan Corbet:
 "A handful of small, late-arriving documentation fixes"

* tag 'docs-7.0-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/docs/linux:
  docs: toshiba_haps: fix grammar error in SSD warning
  Docs/mm: fix typos and grammar in page_tables.rst
  Docs/core-api: fix typos in rbtree.rst
  docs: clarify wording in programming-language.rst
  docs: process: maintainer-pgp-guide: update kernel.org docs link
  docs: kdoc_parser: allow __exit in function prototypes
2026-02-15 10:47:59 -08:00

58 lines
2.6 KiB
ReStructuredText

.. _programming_language:
Programming Language
====================
The Linux kernel is written in the C programming language [c-language]_.
More precisely, it is typically compiled with ``gcc`` [gcc]_
under ``-std=gnu11`` [gcc-c-dialect-options]_: the GNU dialect of ISO C11.
``clang`` [clang]_ is also supported; see documentation on
:ref:`Building Linux with Clang/LLVM <kbuild_llvm>`.
This dialect contains many extensions to the language [gnu-extensions]_,
and many of them are used within the kernel as a matter of course.
Attributes
----------
One of the common extensions used throughout the kernel are attributes
[gcc-attribute-syntax]_. Attributes allow to introduce
implementation-defined semantics to language entities (like variables,
functions or types) without having to make significant syntactic changes
to the language (e.g. adding a new keyword) [n2049]_.
In some cases, attributes are optional (i.e. a compiler not supporting them
should still produce proper code, even if it is slower or does not perform
as many compile-time checks/diagnostics).
The kernel defines pseudo-keywords (e.g. ``__pure``) instead of using
directly the GNU attribute syntax (e.g. ``__attribute__((__pure__))``)
in order to feature detect which ones can be used and/or to shorten the code.
Please refer to ``include/linux/compiler_attributes.h`` for more information.
Rust
----
The kernel has support for the Rust programming language
[rust-language]_ under ``CONFIG_RUST``. It is compiled with ``rustc`` [rustc]_
under ``--edition=2021`` [rust-editions]_. Editions are a way to introduce
small changes to the language that are not backwards compatible.
On top of that, some unstable features [rust-unstable-features]_ are used in
the kernel. Unstable features may change in the future, thus it is an important
goal to reach a point where only stable features are used.
Please refer to Documentation/rust/index.rst for more information.
.. [c-language] http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/standards
.. [gcc] https://gcc.gnu.org
.. [clang] https://clang.llvm.org
.. [gcc-c-dialect-options] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/C-Dialect-Options.html
.. [gnu-extensions] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/C-Extensions.html
.. [gcc-attribute-syntax] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Attribute-Syntax.html
.. [n2049] http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n2049.pdf
.. [rust-language] https://www.rust-lang.org
.. [rustc] https://doc.rust-lang.org/rustc/
.. [rust-editions] https://doc.rust-lang.org/edition-guide/editions/
.. [rust-unstable-features] https://github.com/Rust-for-Linux/linux/issues/2