C: The Complete Reference

I got the Fourth Edition and I loved it!

This book is in common use by C developers, especially on Microsoft platforms. It has some flaws, mostly due to Microsoft centricity, but I shall give it five stars. This is because all of the complaints about this books seem to me, after researching this issue, to date by way of viral replication from a single document ("C: the Complete Nonsense": use Google to find). I have discovered that the author of this document, one Peter Seebach, is without qualifications or standing in either practical real-world programming (especially on Microsoft platforms) or academic training, whereas Herb Schildt has a Master's in computer science and extensive real-world experience especially but not exclusively on Microsoft platforms, where C programmers need extensive guidance. Based on this single document it has become a fashion statement amongst non-Microsoft developers to "hate Schildt". If you Google and examine the single source of the Schildt canard you find a list of about twenty random objections, some of which are genuine errata (of the sort that appear all the time in published newspapers, magazines and books despite the best efforts of authors and editors), some of which stem from Seebach's hatred of Microsoft (a fashion statement), and some of which are trite. For example, because Seebach believes that it is logically possible to implement C without using a stack for small values and a heap for larger data structures, Seebach takes Schildt to task for existentially talking about "the" stack and "the" heap. Because of Seebach's limitations, he fails to see that Herb's discussion was no different from the way a high school teacher of geometry must perforce draw a specific right triangle (with a specific size) to illustrate a general Pythagorean truth about such triangles. Seebach himself makes errors in his document which in turn may be "laughed at", where the campaign against Schildt, although conducted by chronological adults, is conducted by way of the childish laughter of fourteen year olds; very often, arguments against Schildt as seen on comp.lang.c reduce to "agree with me that Schildt sucks or I will laugh at you". For example, Seebach tells us at one point that "the 'heap' is a DOS term". Which of course, it is not; heaps were invented to store variable-length data structures without cluttering the stack. Charitably, that is with a charity Seebach is incapable of showing, one could say that Herb's presentation was, according to Seebach, overly specific, and tied towards an MS-DOS runtime architecture in which the stack grew in one direction and the heap another in a common, and at the time (the time of the first edition of this book) small storage. But this means that the high-school teacher of geometry who does not warn his students that what he claims is true of all possible triangles, and who does not warn his students that the dimension of the line he draws in chalk is not (or is) to be included in the calculation of the area of

[Helpful? Not? Please vote.] :: Mr. Hayes is undoubtedly a competent C programmer. This book isn't intended for him, nor anyone else who patently needs no introduction to the basics. For example: If you know and understand and can recognize fundamental differences between compilers (perhaps you've written a compiler or two yourself?) ... you likely don't need this book. If you know and understand different program extensions or have a nuts-n-bolts understanding of portability issues ... you likely don't need this book. If you're porting code across platforms in the first place ... I digress. I just hated to see the first review of this book rate it so poorly by being so obviously slanted or geared to the competent and experienced programmer ... Similarly, "Green Eggs and Ham" isn't really a Comparative Literature text either. This book is for new-ish programmers. I think it's specifically for undergrads who don't want to memorize the minutia of every single string function in C. Plain, vanilla C-code is all about syntax, order of operation and algorithms of the native functions. Most students understand how to solve labs on paper, but can't translate it to the infernal foreign language that is C-code. C is no mystery, and it's about exactness and handling every single possible input. It's also about reserved words, declaring and using data types and structures, and basically completing lab assignments, for the first 3 years or so. After that, C, C++, JAVA, whatever ... you know programming, and can find out what you need to complete any program in any language once you have the basics well in hand. Having taught at the University level, I find Schildt to be very good at making Sophomores out of Freshmen, and Juniors out of Sophomores. Beyond that, it's only a once-in-a-while grab to look up some small thing or another ... I used this book for undergrad and grad CS studies. It is THE preeminent reference for plain, vanilla C-language coding. It has data types, quirky ways compliers and loaders treat certain operations, and lots of "details" that you just can't and probably shouldn't remember unless you use them every day. This is the encyclopedia of C-language details, in a reference format; something lacking from K & R's books, which can have you searching and reading on a topic for some time, only to find an answer of limited utility. I do LOVE K & R's book(s), but it took a couple of years before I was fluent enough to really absorb their prose, which is no doubt, a more advanced treatment of what you can do with C. This "Schildt manual", as we called it in school, is more about HOW to do something, once you know WHAT you want to do ... This will not solve algorithm problems for you, per se, but if you're looking for the string operation that will make what your algorithm calls for easiest, they're all in here, explained with syntax and order of operations in plain English. I would hate to think what my undergrad years wou

This book teach you since the beginning of C for advanced techniques. If you are a beginner or a senior programmer, you must have this book, reasons: - Teachs all C basics, with an easy and clean language; - easy-to-understand code examples; - shows the basics of artificial intelligence; - shows data structures, binary trees, nodes, etc; - Have a full part teaching how to write a C interpreter, using everything you've learned on the book. You'll be able to write advanced code after reading this part. - And the MAIN PART of the book: has a complete reference of C functions, with list of parameters of each function, little description and examples. The only bad thing is the chapter about pointers and matrices. In some parts I got confused. But, after reading the entire book.. I've understood all the logic involving pointers and matrices. This is the most used C book here in the brazilian universities. Recommended! You MUST have this book in your shelf!

Before buying this book, I hesitated because of the negative feedback. I own Java2 5th Ed. from Schildt, and I though a book in C would be good too. After reading the entire C fourth Edition I came with the following impression: I wish I had found this book before!. It is designed for engineer-type guys: People who wnats to read, what they need. It doesn't go for pages on silly explanations, nor it circles around topics. It doesn't even say things like: "to find out more about linked lists, go to page 310".... I hate those!. It is just that: a Complete reference. I guess people who is an absolute beginner will find it a little bit more advance (try getting one of those "Learning C in X days" books). If you know something about C, but are not an expert. This is the best reference for you when you need to quickly code something. Of course, it won't be usefull if you want to write a millions of lines program, or something extremely complex. If you need a reference for the C standard Library, this is it. Don't expect it to be an advanced book on Networking, or Real Time processing... it is just a book for Standrad C.

This book is by far the best programming book i've ever read. The information in this book is presented in a way I find superior to other books. The language used is very good, explanations and examples are short & clear, yet tells you everything. I saw some reviewers rated this book = 1 , because of not conforming to the ANSI standard or leaving out important C++ topics (!) - Those guys need help, not C books.