C Primer Plus (Developer's Library)

I have both 5th and 6th editions of this book. Great reference materials. This author is concise, meticulous, and accurate. Some things I wish this book included were some tricks or examples which aren't as mundane. Some delving into strategy to deal with non classroom problems would be nice. As usual this simply covers the core of C with some additional information regarding C!x and C11. I browsed over this in about 2 hours and didn't see much change from the fith edition when it came to examples. Furthermore I'm a little disappointed that there wasn't a chapter dedicated solely to the differences in C11 and C99 that was covered in his 5th edition. Additionally, it would be nice to have some of the more obscure features of C explained in further detail. Some examples of this are C scope and exactly what that means for programming and isolation. The use of examples around this is paramount in understanding how some compliers implement the language. I'll give an obscure example which I don't believe is mentioned in the book simply because the feature is considered taboo to C. Scope can easily be understood with the goto statement. if I were to put a label for goto in c inside a separate scope ( ie, a block of code can be isolated to it's own scope with curly braces ). Then I can goto this, but can't goto some label which is not within that scope. in other words, I can't go into a curly braced section but then cannot go back out of it later because the scope has changed during execution. This is an aspect of coding and scope which isn't exemplified very well. Not that goto is a good thing to use in C, unless of course you are trying to explain scope and some of the quirky things with you can do with curly braces. As a result there are some nuances which are otherwise lost in reference. Another example is the for loop construct and the survival of initiator variables outside of the scope of the loop and what happens to them after the use. Again this is just me remembering how scope can be very useful tool in this language although most of my knowledge is based around compliers interpreting my code. As a result, what's supposed to be happening in theory doesn't always pan out. I have had a few programs allow me to use the established variables in the for loop initiation again after the for loop breaks. this is extremely useful if you need to use a loop iteration value for some other calculation. the initiated variables following the for declaration in parenthesis don't go always go away and understanding scope becomes paramount. This book still provides excellent information and I cannot give it any less than 5 stars.

A preface about my programming knowledge: I am an experienced C programmer (since 2001) and have programmed for Linux, DOS, Windows, Palm OS, Mac OS X, and a few other systems (including my own OS). I have experience programming for x86, PowerPC, MIPS, ARM, and some SPARC. I also know C++, Java, and Pascal. As for my review of the book, I have read the first 5 chapters of this book then skimmed the remaining portions of the book stopping at various unspecified locations to read the text. I have spotted an error or two but as long as you read enough of the surrounding text you should be able to figure out what it should be. The text is descriptive and concise, it covers the current topic at hand with good context and detail. There are forward references to later concepts you will read about in later chapters, however when they are used it is not in a way that would confuse you if you never have programmed C before. I have not found any imposing of stylistic issues such as whether to use tabs or spaces, curly braces on the next line or same line, asterisk placement, etc., although the book sticks to one style (except in the cases to show valid programs formatted differently). There are many different implementations of C and 3 major versions of C such as C89, C99, and C11. This book differentiates between such standards to inform you of whether a feature is part of C89, C99, or C11. The oldest standard throughout the book is C89 at least so you will not find K&R style function declarations. There are also mentions to note that if you run into trouble, such as compilation errors, that your compiler supports too old of a standard. As for implementations and systems, the book says that you should not expect one system to be the same as another, which is something that I like. There is a short reference at the back of the book as per the functions in the standard library along with information on which standard it is available for. So in short, whether you are very new to programming or an old pro, this is a good book to have in your library.

It looks like the customer reviews for C Primer Plus (by Stephen Prata) are mixed in with another book on C++. So, to be clear, this review is for C Primer Plus (6th Edition). I am a competent R programmer interested in expanding my skills to something more high performance, After struggling through the classic but sparse K&R text on C, I turned to this book. It has not disappointed. I am halfway through the book and now can easily handle basic I/O, different variable types, operators, functions, arrays, pointers (well, are pointer ever easy?) and most (all?) control statements. It is a comprehensive text that thoroughly explains principles including how and why things go wrong. The end-of-the-chapter review questions include answers, and the programming exercises (also at the end of each chapter but sans solutions) are appropriate applications of principles and skills. They were challenging, but not so impossibly hard that they could not be solved. This book, and learning C in general, also provides insight into how computers work - how they are storing the information and how to access that information, for example. Lastly, the book is wryly funny, sprinkled with all sorts of jokes about the inconveniences computers and programming can cause humanity (e.g. From Chapter 10: "There is no need to subject yourself to the ridicule of your compiler.") I'm sure the book has some downsides, but I have not yet found them. The mistakes in syntax other reviewers refer to appear to have been corrected in this edition.

This book offers a comprehensive course in C programming. It discerns between C89 and C99 well. If concepts like 64-bit are foreign to you, you'll get a crash course in computer architecture. You will need to be well-versed in algebra. Terms like mantissa and significant digits matter in C. The book will help you determine if your compiler is C99 compliant, if your system is 32 or 64-bit and other concepts. This book takes a spiral approach to learning. You'll come across pointers and other concepts in early chapters, but they are not explained until much later. If you are unfamiliar with binary, octal, and hexadecimal, you may struggle with portions of this book. A note to Kindle users: I have tested the Kindle version on OSX 10.9, 10.10, WIn XP, Win 7 and a first generation Kindle device. The code and text are legible as of June 2015. I read reports of people having issues with the Kindle version. I have no issues with it. I have programmed in C, assembly, Pascal and BASIC. If you complete this book, you will have a solid foundation in C programming.

I've gone through about half of it, so far, & it seems very thorough. The only complaint i have is the scripts are hard to follow, because of the way Kindle has it formatted, ie one line of script does not all fall on one line of text, so you have to really look at it to figure out where one line starts and ends.

My goal to read this book was to refresh my C language knowledge. I've read this book from cover to cover, worked on each and every exercise in the chapters. It took around 3 months to finish it. For me every minute was worth to spend on this book. After reading it I still use it as a reference. I don't remember having seen an example that did not work. The author's style to teach the topics is very explanatory. I believe anyone who is interested in C language can get great value from this book. I hope you enjoy reading it, too.

I asked a friend what book he would advise me to learn how to program. And he recommended this one. Said it would help me figure out a lot of things. And I'm really glad that I wasn't scared of so many pages and I worked it out well. If you're an absolute beginner self-taught and you want a solid foundation for your next training, this book can help you a lot. I want to thank the author of this book - he has done a great amount of work to make this book as useful and interesting as possible. It is priceless!

C Primer Plus is well-written and carefully edited, and I like the structure they chose: each chapter is followed by a review of the key concepts, a summary, and then review questions and then, finally, programming exercises. By presenting the material, then reminding the reader of it twice (key concepts and summary), then giving the reader two opportunities to think each of the concepts through (review questions and exercises), the reader leaves each chapter knowing the material reasonably well. C Primer Plus covers all the basics of C programming, and it does it well. It's a great place to start for anyone serious about learning the C programming language.