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I am wondering if there is a limit for the length of a line (Characters per line) in a code written in C, something similar to the Fortran 72 (or 80 including all) limit. I know that style guides usually point towards 80 for readability purposes but I want to know if there is a real limit for C as it does happens for Fortran.

klutt
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FiSer
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    Does this answer your question? [Source line length limit](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10519738/source-line-length-limit) – IndieGameDev Oct 06 '20 at 10:28
  • fwiw limit in Fortran is 132: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44990119/why-is-maximum-single-line-length-limited-to-132-characters-in-fortran-standard – 463035818_is_not_an_ai Oct 06 '20 at 10:28
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    C and C++ are two seperate languages with their own set of rules. Please dont tag both unless the question is about interoperation of the two languages. – 463035818_is_not_an_ai Oct 06 '20 at 10:30
  • @MathewHD It does answer it for C++, so I changed the question to only include C – klutt Oct 06 '20 at 10:30

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From C11 5.2.4.1 Translation Limits:

The implementation shall be able to translate and execute at least one program that contains at least one instance of every one of the following limits:

  • [...]
  • 4095 characters in a logical source line

Any C compiler should be able to process at least lines with 4095 characters. Nowadays compilers have no upper limit - it is effectively constrained by available memory.

As an example gcc documentation Implementation Limits states:

  • Number of characters on a logical source line.

The C standard requires a minimum of 4096 be permitted. CPP places no limits on this, but you may get incorrect column numbers reported in diagnostics for lines longer than 65,535 characters.

KamilCuk
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