C Bibliography

[jacob navia]

Hi

We had recently a discussion about books, and I decided to update the
Bibliography part of my C tutorial. Here is the current list. Did I
forget an important one? Or you disagree with some book being included?

Feedback appreciated.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bibliography
Here are some books about C. I recommend you to read them before you
believe what I say about them.

«The C programming language»
Brian W Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie. (second edition)
This was the first book about C that I got, and it is still a good read.
With many exercises, it is very good start for a serious beginner.

«C Unleashed»
Richard Heathfield, Lawrence Kirby et al.
Heavy duty book full of interesting stuff like structures, matrix
arithmetic, genetic algorithms and many more. The basics are covered
too, with lists, queues, double linked lists, stacks, etc.

«Algorithms in C»
Robert Sedgewick.
I have only the part 5, graph algorithms. For that part (that covers
DAGs and many others) I can say that this is a no-nonsense book, full of
useful algorithms. The code is clear and well presented.

«C, a reference manual»
(Fifth edition) Samuel P Harbison and Guy L Steele Jr.
If you are a professional that wants to get all the C language described
in great detail this book is for you. It covers the whole grammar and
the standard library with each part of it described in detail.

«A retargetable C compiler: design and implementation»
Chris Fraser and Dave Hanson
This book got me started in this adventure. It is a book about compiler
construction and not really about the C language but if you are
interested in knowing how lcc-win works this is surely the place to start.

“C interfaces and implementations”
David R. Hanson
This is an excellent book about many subjects, like multiple precision
arithmetic, lists, sets, exception handling, and many others. The
implementation is in straight C and will compile without any problems in
lcc-win.

“Safer C”
Les Hatton
As we have seen in the section «Pitfalls of the C language», C is quite
ridden with problems. This book address how to avoid this problems and
design and develop you work to avoid getting bitten by them.

C Programming FAQs
Steve Summit
C Programming FAQs contains more than 400 frequently asked questions
about C, accompanied by definitive answers. Some of them are distributed
with lcc-win but the book is more complete and up-to-date.

The Standard C Library
P.J. Plauger.
This book shows you an implementation (with the source code) of the
standard C library done by somebody that is in the standards committee,
and knows what he is speaking about. One of the best ways of learning C
is to read C. This will give you a lot of examples of well written C,
and show you how a big project can be structured.

The C Standard
John Wiley and Sons.
This is the reference book for the language. It contains the complete C
standard and the rationale, explaining some fine points of the standard.

“Secure coding in C and C++”
Robert C Seacord.
This is a very complete book about the known vulnerabilities of C
programs. Very clear, and easy to read.

Buffer Overflows: Attacks and Defenses for the Vulnerability of the Decade
Crispin Cowan, Perry Wagle, Calton Pu,Steve Beattie, and Jonathan Walpole
Department of Computer Science and Engineering Oregon Graduate Institute
of Science & Technology. URL:
http://downloads.securityfocus.com/library/discex00.pdf

“C Mathematical function Handbook”
Louis Baker (1991)
This book has provided invaluable help in implementing many functions
from the “special functions” library.

 

[Eric Sosman]

Hi

We had recently a discussion about books, and I decided to update the
Bibliography part of my C tutorial. Here is the current list. Did I
forget an important one? Or you disagree with some book being included?

I'll cast a vote in favor of including "C Traps and Pitfalls"
by Andrew Koenig. An instructive book, despite a few errors.

http://www.amazon.com/C-Traps-Pitfalls-Andrew-Koenig/dp/0201179288

 

[jacob navia]

I'll cast a vote in favor of including "C Traps and Pitfalls"
by Andrew Koenig. An instructive book, despite a few errors.

http://www.amazon.com/C-Traps-Pitfalls-Andrew-Koenig/dp/0201179288

Yes, I forgot that one. Besides the trivial errors
( main() instead of int main(void) page 72) what errors
are you referring to?

It would be interesting to tell the reader which errors you found.
I think I overlooked them when I read that (a while back)

 

[Eric Sosman]

Yes, I forgot that one. Besides the trivial errors
( main() instead of int main(void) page 72) what errors
are you referring to?

It would be interesting to tell the reader which errors you found.
I think I overlooked them when I read that (a while back)

My copy is not nearby at the moment, but I recall that
there was an appendix about printf() saying the "%%" specifier
could take a length modifier, as in "%10%". I'll try to dig
my copy out tonight and see what else I scribbled in the
margins.

Good book in any case.

 

[Flash Gordon]

jacob navia wrote, On 08/01/08 18:47:

Hi

We had recently a discussion about books, and I decided to update the
Bibliography part of my C tutorial. Here is the current list. Did I
forget an important one? Or you disagree with some book being included?

Feedback appreciated.

A couple of general comments...
1) Include the ISBN numbers so that people can find the books more easily.
2) Include references to the errata.

C Programming FAQs
Steve Summit
C Programming FAQs contains more than 400 frequently asked questions
about C, accompanied by definitive answers. Some of them are distributed
with lcc-win but the book is more complete and up-to-date.

You should check with Steve to see if you have problems with copyright
distributing some of then with lcc-win! Also include a reference to
http://c-faq.com/

The C Standard
John Wiley and Sons.
This is the reference book for the language. It contains the complete C
standard and the rationale, explaining some fine points of the standard.

<snip>

Reference the publicly available drafts and the ability to by the
current standard online relatively cheaply. Also specify which version
of the standard this book contains. As a reference for where the
standard can be obtained please see http://clc-wiki.net/wiki/c_standard

 

[osmium]

We had recently a discussion about books, and I decided to update the
Bibliography part of my C tutorial. Here is the current list. Did I forget
an important one? Or you disagree with some book being included?

You left out _Expert C Programming_ by Peter van der Kinder, the best book
for "advanced" study.

 

[jacob navia]

You left out _Expert C Programming_ by Peter van der Kinder, the best book
for "advanced" study.

Ahhhhh bad news...

I do not have that one.

I can add it if you want, but (if possible), can you send a sentence
or two about it?

P.S. Of course I will put that in the bibliography under "comp.std.c"
contributions, with the name of the participants.

 

[Roland Pibinger]

You left out _Expert C Programming_ by Peter van der Kinder, the best book
for "advanced" study.

Peter van der Linden

 

[Keith Thompson]

P.S. Of course I will put that in the bibliography under "comp.std.c"
contributions, with the name of the participants.

That would be "comp.lang.c" contributions.

 

[Eric Sosman]

My copy is not nearby at the moment, but I recall that
there was an appendix about printf() saying the "%%" specifier
could take a length modifier, as in "%10%". I'll try to dig
my copy out tonight and see what else I scribbled in the
margins.

Good book in any case.

Leafing through my copy, I found only a few marginal
scribbles -- but then, I don't write in books much. There
are several `/*plain*/ main()'s and failures to #include an
"innocuous" header like <stdlib.h>, but in fairness these
were not in any sense errors when the book was published.
My only other scribble is for the aforementioned gaffe
concerning "%%" (page 128).

I have not tried (nor will I try) to find every error
in Koenig's book; my track record on an incomparably weaker
book shows I'm a poor proofreader. Besides, if only a perfect
book could be called "good," we would have no good books.
Three quarks for Muster Mark!

 

[Reagan Revision]

Hi

We had recently a discussion about books, and I decided to update the
Bibliography part of my C tutorial. Here is the current list. Did I forget
an important one? Or you disagree with some book being included?

Feedback appreciated.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bibliography
Here are some books about C. I recommend you to read them before you
believe what I say about them.

«The C programming language»
Brian W Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie. (second edition)
This was the first book about C that I got, and it is still a good read.
With many exercises, it is very good start for a serious beginner.

_The C Answer Book_, for persons who intend to forget as much C as do I. It
makes studying K&R self-contained. No need to reinvent the wheel if you can
recall it from K&R. It works particularly well refreshing your native
notions of control structures after you recalibrate from learning a new
syntax. It almost has the feel of a Lutherbibel.

C Programming FAQs
Steve Summit
C Programming FAQs contains more than 400 frequently asked questions about
C, accompanied by definitive answers. Some of them are distributed

I still feel guilty about downloading and binding this. Not guilty enough
to discard it.
--
Reagan Revision

"We are being told that a competent, trustworthy president is someone
who brandishes his religion like a neon sign, loads a gun and goes out
hunting for beautiful winged creatures, and tries to imitate a past
president who, by the way, never shot a bird or felt the need to imitate
anybody."

~~ Patti Davis Is Not Flattered by GOP Candidates’ Pale Imitations of
Her Father

 

[Richard Bos]

Peter van der Linden

And I wouldn't say that it's the best anything, unless he's updated it
since the edition I have. That was pretty decent, and a good read, but
in places _very_ Unix-dependent - although he does say so.

Richard

 

[Friedrich Dominicus]

Ahhhhh bad news...

I do not have that one.

I can add it if you want, but (if possible), can you send a sentence
or two about it?

A bit difficult

It's correct title is: "Expert C Programming Deep C Secrets"; Peter
van der Linden; Prentice Hall 1994 !!; ISBN 0-13-177429-8

It starts with a "Tour de History", the advantages and disadvantages,
comments on decisions like "why need cases a break", then he discusses
at lenght the declaration syntax, the differences of pointers and
arrays, then a chapter about linking (which surely has not counterpart
in the Standard;-). Then it discusses how loading works, the memory
model of the Intel x86 processors and in the end more insights into
the pointer array regions...

Oh, well 2 convulted sentences ;-)

Regards
Friedrich

 

[James Kuyper]

Friedrich Dominicus wrote:
....

comments on decisions like "why need cases a break", then he discusses

Should that have been "Why cases need a break"?

 

[James Kuyper]

Reagan Revision wrote:
....

_The C Answer Book_, for persons who intend to forget as much C as do I. It

_in_tend? Was learning C that awful an experience?

 

[jacob navia]

That would be "comp.lang.c" contributions.

Yes, sorry another typo.

 

[Tor Rustad]

And I wouldn't say that it's the best anything, unless he's updated it
since the edition I have. That was pretty decent, and a good read, but
in places _very_ Unix-dependent - although he does say so.

This must be the funniest C book I have ever read. The UNIX material is
minimal, when considering the author was working on Solaris kernel group.

OTOH, I'm rather relaxed upon system dependent material, when it's
coming from a expert...

 

[Tor Rustad]

jacob navia wrote:

[...]

«Algorithms in C»
Robert Sedgewick.
I have only the part 5, graph algorithms. For that part (that covers
DAGs and many others) I can say that this is a no-nonsense book, full of
useful algorithms. The code is clear and well presented.

Part 1-4 is excellent, but the C code is not. That is, the reader must
be prepared to do a lot of debugging, before getting a library at
industrial strength.

“C Mathematical function Handbook”
Louis Baker (1991)
This book has provided invaluable help in implementing many functions
from the “special functions” library.

Even so, the usual reference for application programmers, is rather
"Numerical recipes in C", which is available online for free. The code
is a nightmare for a C pedant, but it's there and so are a lot of
references.


As for the book you left out, I do agree that "C traps and pitfalls"
and "C Expert Programming" belong on such a list.