There are lots of introductory C books, but this is the first one that has the no-nonsense, practical approach that has made Nutshell Handbooks® famous. C programming is more than just getting the syntax right. Style and debugging also play a tremendous part in creating programs that run well and are easy to maintain.
Practical C Programming teaches you how to create programs that are easy to read, debug, and maintain. Practical rules are stressed. For example, there are fifteen precedence rules in C (&& comes before || comes before ?:). The practical programmer reduces these to two:
multiplication and division come before addition and subtraction
Electronic Archaeology, the art of going through someone else's code, is also described.
Topics covered: - Good programming style - C syntax: what to use and what not to use - The programming environment, including make - The total programming process - Floating point limitations - Tricks and surprises
In this second edition, program examples conform to ANSI C. Covers Turbo C (DOS) as well as the UNIX C compiler.
Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal featured on the cover of Practical C Programming is a Jersey cow. The Jersey, one of the many breeds of modern cows, originated from a now extinct stock of wild cattle that inhabited western Asia, North Africa, and continental Europe. Cows were first introduced into the western hemisphere by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in 1493.
Jerseys, bred on the British isle of Jersey since 1789, were first introduced to America in the 1850s. Smallest of the modern dairy cows, this fawn-colored beast typically weighs between 1000 and 1500 pounds. As a milk producer, Jerseys are the least prolific of any American dairy cow. However, their milk is creamier than that of any other breed. UNIX and its attendant programs can be unruly beasts. Nutshell Handbooks(R) help you tame them.
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Edie Freedman designed this cover and the entire UNIX bestiary that appears on other Nutshell Handbooks. The beasts themselves are adapted from 19th-century engravings from the Dover Pictorial Archive.
The text of this book is set in Times Roman; headings are Helvetica; examples are Courier. Text was prepared using SortQuad's sqtroff text formatter. Figures are produced with a Macintosh. Printing is done on a Tegra Varityper 5000.
