Learning a language--any language--involves a process wherein you learn to rely less and less on instruction and more increasingly on the aspects of the language you've mastered. Whether you're learning French, Java, or C, at some point you'll set aside the tutorial and attempt to converse on your own. It's not necessary to know every subtle facet of French in order to speak it well, especially if there's a good dictionary available. Likewise, C programmers don't need to memorize every detail of C in order to write good programs. What they need instead is a reliable, comprehensive reference that they can keep nearby. C in a Nutshell is that reference.

This long-awaited book is a complete reference to the C programming language and C runtime library. Its purpose is to serve as a convenient, reliable companion in your day-to-day work as a C programmer. C in a Nutshell covers virtually everything you need to program in C, describing all the elements of the language and illustrating their use with numerous examples.

The book is divided into three distinct parts. The first part is a fast-paced description, reminiscent of the classic Kernighan & Ritchie text on which many C programmers cut their teeth. It focuses specifically on the C language and preprocessor directives, including extensions introduced to the ANSI standard in 1999. These topics and others are covered:

• Numeric constants

• Implicit and explicit type conversions

• Expressions and operators

• Functions

• Fixed-length and variable-length arrays

• Pointers

• Dynamic memory management

• Input and output

The second part of the book is a comprehensive reference to the C runtime library; it includes an overview of the contents of the standard headers and a description of each standard library function. Part III provides the necessary knowledge of the C programmer's basic tools: the compiler, the make utility, and the debugger. The tools described here are those in the GNU software collection.

C in a Nutshell is the perfect companion to K&R, and destined to be the most reached-for reference on your desk.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 11 Ratings

Don't read if you aren't already familiar with C - 2008-09-07
Reviewer Rating:
This is not a bad book, but not a great one either. The authors assume that the reader already knows almost everything about C and they are just filling in the holes. Constant references to topics that won't be covered formally until four or five chapters later are jarring. This would make more sense in a book structured strictly as a syntax reference. Don't consider this book if you are trying to learn C; if you already program it may be a useful reference.

Excellent C reference - 2008-10-03
Reviewer Rating:
This is really an excellent book. This book is really intended for people who already are familiar with C. It isn't intended to teach you the language.

Note that it covers a lot of C99, which may not be fully implemented in all compilers.

Excellent Reference - 2008-06-05
Reviewer Rating:
This book is a model of brevity and thoroughness. I wish every programming reference could be written this way. Heck, I wish I could write this way.

Look for a cow on the cover Practical C not C++ - 2009-11-22
Reviewer Rating:
Look for a cow on the cover of this book. I bought this book for a C in UNIX class. The C part is great.

There is hardly a page that does not have an example or enlightening diagram. However, the only reference to applying this to UNIX is in the back where it "Practically" says that there are different versions of UNIX. It never really clamed to be a UNIX book on C. The section on unbufferd I/O has a little more on the UNIX handling of files. Over all, until something better comes along I am still using this book.

The Perfect Desk Reference for C - 2009-09-24
Reviewer Rating:
I bought this because of it's section on GCC and GDB. The book is an excellent reference. The examples (for everything) are good and to the point. The examples cover enough to give you what you need without wasting time with setup. The book is organized in a way that makes it easy to find what you need. It's worth the money if you use C on a fairly regular basis. Again, the reference on GCC and GDB is invaluable.

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