The American National Standards Institute, dismayed that there was only a single dialect of C with popular support, decided to invent another. In the proces they defined a standard for the language, eliminating much uncertainty about the exact syntax of the language. This newcomer, called ANSI C, proclaims itself the standard version of the language. As such it will inevitably overtake, and eventually replace common C.
ANSI C does incorporate a few improvements over the old common C. The main difference is in the grammar of the language. The form of function declarations has been changed making them rather more like Pascal procedures.
As with most standards, books and compilers relating to ANSI C are usually re-writes of pre-standard versions, but are available at an increased cost.
