5 ms·

The C Book (HTML Book on C)

92 points by mahmud 16y ago

vog 16y ago
It's always great when a good book is released under a free license. This should be the normal case for all books that are out of print. Unfortunately, most books simply vanish and/or have an unclear legal status.
euroclydon 16y ago
What's up with the printer friendly version? It doesn't work for me.
- telemachos 16y ago
  Good to know it's not just me. (Chrome dev 6.0.458.1 and Safari both no-go on OSX 10.6.4.)
  - MarkBook 16y ago
    Do you have no feelings at all for your fellow man? :(
    - telemachos 16y ago
      Misery loves company? More seriously, I take your point. I say that a lot ("Good to know it's not just me."). I'll have to think a little bit more about why.
      - MarkBook 16y ago
        I was only kidding Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow
      - JadeNB 16y ago
        > I say that a lot ("Good to know it's not just me."). I'll have to think a little bit more about why. I say it a lot too, especially when talking about interfacing with external resources, and I don't think it's anything to do with enjoying others' misery. It's simply being happy to have it confirmed that the problem you're observing is (probably) someone else's fault, not your own; this carries the bad news that you (probably) can't fix it yourself, but the good news that you don't have to fix it yourself.
- blue1 16y ago
  http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/?format=pf http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/?format=pf
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
aarongough 16y ago
Awesome timing. I'm just starting to contemplate porting the prototype VM i'm working on to C. Thanks Mahmud! You seem to be coming to the rescue often these days :-p
- jfr 16y ago
  The book is from 1991, almost 20 years ago. There is a lot of outdated information. You should perhaps look for something more recent, that covers C99 and features commonly found on current compilers.
  - aarongough 16y ago
    Thanks for the heads-up. Is C really that different now that I need to worry about it? I have done some work in C++ before, but that was many years ago and I've grown accustomed to high-level languages...
    - mahmud 16y ago
      No it's not that different. GCC still compiles 1978 C.
      - aarongough 16y ago
        Good thing I'm using GCC then! Thanks Mahmud!
    - jfr 16y ago
      In essence, it is the same language, just that it evolved considerably since then. There are places where you could really use a more current reference. For example, the book instructs you to define the main function like: main(){ /* ... */ } This is considered bad code style for todays standards. It doesn't state the return value (it defaults to int) and it leaves the argument list open (you can pass any number of arguments to the function). In other places, it puts restrictions that are no longer relevant today. For example, since C99 (and most compilers allowed this long before C99) you can declare variables anywhere inside a block (which is pretty handy), and not just at the beginning of the function.
telemachos 16y ago
A quick question: the book (at least early on) advocates this for main: # implied int; implied void main() { # whatever exit(0) # or EXIT_SUCCESS } Is this simply a stylistic choice (rather than a more explicit int main(void) and return(0)). I'm mostly curious, but I know that how to deal with main can be a sacred cow. Edit: And sure enough clang (by default) and gcc (with -Wall) both issue warnings.
- johnswamps 16y ago
  The book was written 20 years ago, before the C99 spec was released. main() was acceptable but discouraged in C89, which is why -Wall (or more precisely -Wimplicit-int) displays a warning. It's disallowed by the C99 spec and will always give you a warning.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
kngspook 16y ago
The OP's link looks like an HTML dump of http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/ http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/ , which I'm pretty sure is the original... (And there's also a PDF of all the pages, linked to from the gbdirect version, http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/the_c_book.pdf http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/the_c_book.pdf ; for those of you having trouble with the printer-friendly version.)
wizzard19 16y ago
Here's the official GNU C book: http://www.htu.tugraz.at/~past/ctut/ctut.pdf http://www.htu.tugraz.at/~past/ctut/ctut.pdf

92 points by mahmud 16y ago

vog 16y ago

It's always great when a good book is released under a free license. This should be the normal case for all books that are out of print. Unfortunately, most books simply vanish and/or have an unclear legal status.

euroclydon 16y ago

What's up with the printer friendly version? It doesn't work for me.

telemachos 16y ago
Good to know it's not just me. (Chrome dev 6.0.458.1 and Safari both no-go on OSX 10.6.4.)
- MarkBook 16y ago
  Do you have no feelings at all for your fellow man? :(
  - telemachos 16y ago
    Misery loves company? More seriously, I take your point. I say that a lot ("Good to know it's not just me."). I'll have to think a little bit more about why.
    - MarkBook 16y ago
      I was only kidding Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow
    - JadeNB 16y ago
      > I say that a lot ("Good to know it's not just me."). I'll have to think a little bit more about why. I say it a lot too, especially when talking about interfacing with external resources, and I don't think it's anything to do with enjoying others' misery. It's simply being happy to have it confirmed that the problem you're observing is (probably) someone else's fault, not your own; this carries the bad news that you (probably) can't fix it yourself, but the good news that you don't have to fix it yourself.
blue1 16y ago
http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/?format=pf http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/?format=pf

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

aarongough 16y ago

Awesome timing. I'm just starting to contemplate porting the prototype VM i'm working on to C. Thanks Mahmud! You seem to be coming to the rescue often these days :-p

jfr 16y ago
The book is from 1991, almost 20 years ago. There is a lot of outdated information. You should perhaps look for something more recent, that covers C99 and features commonly found on current compilers.
- aarongough 16y ago
  Thanks for the heads-up. Is C really that different now that I need to worry about it? I have done some work in C++ before, but that was many years ago and I've grown accustomed to high-level languages...
  - mahmud 16y ago
    No it's not that different. GCC still compiles 1978 C.
    - aarongough 16y ago
      Good thing I'm using GCC then! Thanks Mahmud!
  - jfr 16y ago
    In essence, it is the same language, just that it evolved considerably since then. There are places where you could really use a more current reference. For example, the book instructs you to define the main function like: main(){ /* ... */ } This is considered bad code style for todays standards. It doesn't state the return value (it defaults to int) and it leaves the argument list open (you can pass any number of arguments to the function). In other places, it puts restrictions that are no longer relevant today. For example, since C99 (and most compilers allowed this long before C99) you can declare variables anywhere inside a block (which is pretty handy), and not just at the beginning of the function.

telemachos 16y ago

A quick question: the book (at least early on) advocates this for main: # implied int; implied void main() { # whatever exit(0) # or EXIT_SUCCESS } Is this simply a stylistic choice (rather than a more explicit int main(void) and return(0)). I'm mostly curious, but I know that how to deal with main can be a sacred cow. Edit: And sure enough clang (by default) and gcc (with -Wall) both issue warnings.

johnswamps 16y ago
The book was written 20 years ago, before the C99 spec was released. main() was acceptable but discouraged in C89, which is why -Wall (or more precisely -Wimplicit-int) displays a warning. It's disallowed by the C99 spec and will always give you a warning.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

kngspook 16y ago

The OP's link looks like an HTML dump of http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/ http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/ , which I'm pretty sure is the original... (And there's also a PDF of all the pages, linked to from the gbdirect version, http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/the_c_book.pdf http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/the_c_book.pdf ; for those of you having trouble with the printer-friendly version.)

wizzard19 16y ago

Here's the official GNU C book: http://www.htu.tugraz.at/~past/ctut/ctut.pdf http://www.htu.tugraz.at/~past/ctut/ctut.pdf