MISRA C:2012 3rd Edition, 1st Revision?

Coming to Grips with the Terminology

At Embedded World 2019, MISRA launched 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!

3rd 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).

Acknowledgements

The MISRA Consortium

MISRA, MISRA C and the triangle logo are registered trademarks owned by The MISRA Consortium Limited.

Other product or brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

This article has been published in Embedded Computing magazine.

Further reading

MISRA Myths Busted #1 – Is MISRA C just an automotive standard?

MISRA Myths Busted #2 – Is MISRA C just a safety standard?