How would one write object-oriented code in C?

Yes. In fact Axel Schreiner provides his book "Object-oriented Programming in ANSI-C" for free which covers the subject quite thoroughly.

Since you're talking about polymorphism then yes, you can, we were doing that sort of stuff years before C++ came about.

Basically you use a struct to hold both the data and a list of function pointers to point to the relevant functions for that data.

So, in a communications class, you would have an open, read, write and close call which would be maintained as four function pointers in the structure, alongside the data for an object, something like:

typedef struct {
    int (*open)(void *self, char *fspec);
    int (*close)(void *self);
    int (*read)(void *self, void *buff, size_t max_sz, size_t *p_act_sz);
    int (*write)(void *self, void *buff, size_t max_sz, size_t *p_act_sz);
    // And data goes here.
} tCommClass;

tCommClass commRs232;
commRs232.open = &rs232Open;
: :
commRs232.write = &rs232Write;

tCommClass commTcp;
commTcp.open = &tcpOpen;
: :
commTcp.write = &tcpWrite;

Of course, those code segments above would actually be in a "constructor" such as rs232Init().

When you 'inherit' from that class, you just change the pointers to point to your own functions. Everyone that called those functions would do it through the function pointers, giving you your polymorphism:

int stat = (commTcp.open)(commTcp, "bigiron.box.com:5000");

Sort of like a manual vtable.

You could even have virtual classes by setting the pointers to NULL -the behaviour would be slightly different to C++ (a core dump at run-time rather than an error at compile time).

Here's a piece of sample code that demonstrates it. First the top-level class structure:

#include <stdio.h>

// The top-level class.

typedef struct sCommClass {
    int (*open)(struct sCommClass *self, char *fspec);
} tCommClass;

Then we have the functions for the TCP 'subclass':

// Function for the TCP 'class'.

static int tcpOpen (tCommClass *tcp, char *fspec) {
    printf ("Opening TCP: %s\n", fspec);
    return 0;
}
static int tcpInit (tCommClass *tcp) {
    tcp->open = &tcpOpen;
    return 0;
}

And the HTTP one as well:

// Function for the HTTP 'class'.

static int httpOpen (tCommClass *http, char *fspec) {
    printf ("Opening HTTP: %s\n", fspec);
    return 0;
}
static int httpInit (tCommClass *http) {
    http->open = &httpOpen;
    return 0;
}

And finally a test program to show it in action:

// Test program.

int main (void) {
    int status;
    tCommClass commTcp, commHttp;

    // Same 'base' class but initialised to different sub-classes.

    tcpInit (&commTcp);
    httpInit (&commHttp);

    // Called in exactly the same manner.

    status = (commTcp.open)(&commTcp, "bigiron.box.com:5000");
    status = (commHttp.open)(&commHttp, "http://www.microsoft.com");

    return 0;
}

This produces the output:

Opening TCP: bigiron.box.com:5000
Opening HTTP: http://www.microsoft.com

so you can see that the different functions are being called, depending on the sub-class.

I've seen it done. I wouldn't recommend it. C++ originally started this way as a preprocessor that produced C code as an intermediate step.

Essentially what you end up doing is create a dispatch table for all of your methods where you store your function references. Deriving a class would entail copying this dispatch table and replacing the entries that you wanted to override, with your new "methods" having to call the original method if it wants to invoke the base method. Eventually, you end up rewriting C++.

Sure that is possible. This is what GObject, the framework that all of GTK+ and GNOME is based on, does.

Trivial example with an Animal and Dog: You mirror C++'s vtable mechanism (largely anyway). You also separate allocation and instantiation (Animal_Alloc, Animal_New) so we don't call malloc() multiple times. We must also explicitly pass the this pointer around.

If you were to do non-virtual functions, that's trival. You just don't add them to the vtable and static functions don't require a this pointer. Multiple inheritance generally requires multiple vtables to resolve ambiguities.

Also, you should be able to use setjmp/longjmp to do exception handling.

struct Animal_Vtable{
    typedef void (*Walk_Fun)(struct Animal *a_This);
    typedef struct Animal * (*Dtor_Fun)(struct Animal *a_This);

    Walk_Fun Walk;
    Dtor_Fun Dtor;
};

struct Animal{
    Animal_Vtable vtable;

    char *Name;
};

struct Dog{
    Animal_Vtable vtable;

    char *Name; // Mirror member variables for easy access
    char *Type;
};

void Animal_Walk(struct Animal *a_This){
    printf("Animal (%s) walking\n", a_This->Name);
}

struct Animal* Animal_Dtor(struct Animal *a_This){
    printf("animal::dtor\n");
    return a_This;
}

Animal *Animal_Alloc(){
    return (Animal*)malloc(sizeof(Animal));
}

Animal *Animal_New(Animal *a_Animal){
    a_Animal->vtable.Walk = Animal_Walk;
    a_Animal->vtable.Dtor = Animal_Dtor;
    a_Animal->Name = "Anonymous";
    return a_Animal;
}

void Animal_Free(Animal *a_This){
    a_This->vtable.Dtor(a_This);

    free(a_This);
}

void Dog_Walk(struct Dog *a_This){
    printf("Dog walking %s (%s)\n", a_This->Type, a_This->Name);
}

Dog* Dog_Dtor(struct Dog *a_This){
    // Explicit call to parent destructor
    Animal_Dtor((Animal*)a_This);

    printf("dog::dtor\n");

    return a_This;
}

Dog *Dog_Alloc(){
    return (Dog*)malloc(sizeof(Dog));
}

Dog *Dog_New(Dog *a_Dog){
    // Explict call to parent constructor
    Animal_New((Animal*)a_Dog);

    a_Dog->Type = "Dog type";
    a_Dog->vtable.Walk = (Animal_Vtable::Walk_Fun) Dog_Walk;
    a_Dog->vtable.Dtor = (Animal_Vtable::Dtor_Fun) Dog_Dtor;

    return a_Dog;
}

int main(int argc, char **argv){
    /*
      Base class:

        Animal *a_Animal = Animal_New(Animal_Alloc());
    */
    Animal *a_Animal = (Animal*)Dog_New(Dog_Alloc());

    a_Animal->vtable.Walk(a_Animal);

    Animal_Free(a_Animal);
}

PS. This is tested on a C++ compiler, but it should be easy to make it work on a C compiler.

You can fake it using function pointers, and in fact, I think it is theoretically possible to compile C++ programs into C.

However, it rarely makes sense to force a paradigm on a language rather than to pick a language that uses a paradigm.

Object oriented C, can be done, I've seen that type of code in production in Korea, and it was the most horrible monster I'd seen in years (this was like last year(2007) that I saw the code). So yes it can be done, and yes people have done it before, and still do it even in this day and age. But I'd recommend C++ or Objective-C, both are languages born from C, with the purpose of providing object orientation with different paradigms.

Yes, you can. People were writing object-oriented C before C++ or Objective-C came on the scene. Both C++ and Objective-C were, in parts, attempts to take some of the OO concepts used in C and formalize them as part of the language.

Here's a really simple program that shows how you can make something that looks-like/is a method call (there are better ways to do this. This is just proof the language supports the concepts):

#include<stdio.h>

struct foobarbaz{
    int one;
    int two;
    int three;
    int (*exampleMethod)(int, int);
};

int addTwoNumbers(int a, int b){
    return a+b;
}

int main()
{
    // Define the function pointer
    int (*pointerToFunction)(int, int) = addTwoNumbers;

    // Let's make sure we can call the pointer
    int test = (*pointerToFunction)(12,12);
    printf ("test: %u \n",  test);

    // Now, define an instance of our struct
    // and add some default values.
    struct foobarbaz fbb;
    fbb.one   = 1;
    fbb.two   = 2;
    fbb.three = 3;

    // Now add a "method"
    fbb.exampleMethod = addTwoNumbers;

    // Try calling the method
    int test2 = fbb.exampleMethod(13,36);
    printf ("test2: %u \n",  test2);

    printf("\nDone\n");
    return 0;
}

Of course, it just won't be as pretty as using a language with built-in support. I've even written "object-oriented assembler".

There is an example of inheritance using C in Jim Larson's 1996 talk given at the Section 312 Programming Lunchtime Seminar here: High and Low-Level C.

The answer to the question is 'Yes, you can'.

Object-oriented C (OOC) kit is for those who want to program in an object-oriented manner, but sticks on the good old C as well. OOC implements classes, single and multiple inheritance, exception handling.

Features

• Uses only C macros and functions, no language extensions required! (ANSI-C)

• Easy-to-read source code for your application. Care was taken to make things as simple as possible.

• Single inheritance of classes

• Multiple inheritance by interfaces and mixins (since version 1.3)

• Implementing exceptions (in pure C!)

• Virtual functions for classes

• External tool for easy class implementation

For more details, visit http://ooc-coding.sourceforge.net/.

Yes, but I have never seen anyone attempt to implement any sort of polymorphism with C.