Raise C requirement to C11

This changes configure and meson.build to require at least C11,
instead of the previous C99.  The installation documentation is
updated accordingly.

configure.ac previously used AC_PROG_CC_C99 to activate C99.  But
there is no AC_PROG_CC_C11 in Autoconf 2.69, because it's too
old.  (Also, post-2.69, the AC_PROG_CC_Cnn macros were deprecated and
AC_PROG_CC activates the last supported C mode.)  We could update the
required Autoconf version, but that might be a separate project that
no one wants to undertake at the moment.  Instead, we open-code the
test for C11 using some inspiration from later Autoconf versions.  But
instead of writing an elaborate test program, we keep it simple and
just check __STDC_VERSION__, which should be good enough in practice.

In meson.build, we update the existing C99 test to C11, but again we
just check for __STDC_VERSION__.

This also removes the separate option for the conforming preprocessor
on MSVC, added by commit 8fd9bb1d965, since that is activated
automatically in C11 mode.

Note, we don't use the "official" way to set the C standard in Meson
using the c_std project option, because that is impossible to use
correctly (see <https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/issues/14717>).

Reviewed-by: David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/01a69441-af54-4822-891b-ca28e05b215a@eisentraut.org

2 files changed, 8 insertions, 11 deletions

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
index 8e5da767c48..a4ad80a6782 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
@@ -71,10 +71,9 @@
 
     <listitem>
      <para>
-      You need an <acronym>ISO</acronym>/<acronym>ANSI</acronym> C compiler (at least
-      C99-compliant). Recent
-      versions of <productname>GCC</productname> are recommended, but
-      <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> is known to build using a wide variety
+      You need a C compiler that supports at least C11.  Recent versions of
+      <productname>GCC</productname> are recommended, but
+      <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> is known to build using a variety
       of compilers from different vendors.
      </para>
     </listitem>
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/sources.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/sources.sgml
index fa68d4d024a..261f19b3534 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/sources.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/sources.sgml
@@ -907,12 +907,12 @@ BETTER: unrecognized node type: 42
     <title>C Standard</title>
     <para>
      Code in <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> should only rely on language
-     features available in the C99 standard. That means a conforming
-     C99 compiler has to be able to compile postgres, at least aside
+     features available in the C11 standard. That means a conforming
+     C11 compiler has to be able to compile postgres, at least aside
      from a few platform dependent pieces.
     </para>
     <para>
-     A few features included in the C99 standard are, at this time, not
+     A few features included in the C11 standard are, at this time, not
      permitted to be used in core <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>
      code. This currently includes variable length arrays, intermingled
      declarations and code, <literal>//</literal> comments, universal
@@ -924,13 +924,11 @@ BETTER: unrecognized node type: 42
      features can be used, if a fallback is provided.
     </para>
     <para>
-     For example <literal>_Static_assert()</literal> and
+     For example <literal>typeof()</literal> and
      <literal>__builtin_constant_p</literal> are currently used, even though
      they are from newer revisions of the C standard and a
      <productname>GCC</productname> extension respectively. If not available
-     we respectively fall back to using a C99 compatible replacement that
-     performs the same checks, but emits rather cryptic messages and do not
-     use <literal>__builtin_constant_p</literal>.
+     we do not use them.
     </para>
    </simplesect>