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C Programming Language, 2nd Edition 2nd Edition
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The authors present the complete guide to ANSI standard C language programming. Written by the developers of C, this new version helps readers keep up with the finalized ANSI standard for C while showing how to take advantage of C's rich set of operators, economy of expression, improved control flow, and data structures. The 2/E has been completely rewritten with additional examples and problem sets to clarify the implementation of difficult language constructs. For years, C programmers have let K&R guide them to building well-structured and efficient programs. Now this same help is available to those working with ANSI compilers. Includes detailed coverage of the C language plus the official C language reference manual for at-a-glance help with syntax notation, declarations, ANSI changes, scope rules, and the list goes on and on.
- ISBN-100131103628
- ISBN-13978-0131103627
- Edition2nd
- PublisherPearson
- Publication dateMarch 22, 1988
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions7.1 x 0.6 x 9.2 inches
- Print length272 pages
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From the Publisher
One of the Most Recommended Programming Books of All Time
"It is hard for me to describe just how profoundly that book affected my career. I remember reading it by a campfire in my back yard—my original still smells of smoke—puzzling over the code, and standing to cheer for the concepts. The simple elegance of the writing; the pragmatic outlook of the authors; the sheer beauty of the language thrilled me as no language had before—or has since."
Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, author of Clean Code.
"K&R is one of my favorite books. The style of the tutorial chapters is so deceptively light and simple and the manual so crisp. Much of C's reputation of simplicity comes from the clarity and great little examples from this book. My 1978 copy has lost its cover and my K&R2 is somewhat dog eared. Above all, K&R is a useful book."
Bjarne Stroustrup, designer and original implementer of C++, and author of The C++ Programming Language
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
From the Publisher
From the Inside Flap
The computing world has undergone a revolution since the publication of The C Programming Language in 1978. Big computers are much bigger, and personal computers have capabilities that rival the mainframes of a decade ago. During this time, C has changed too, although only modestly, and it has spread far beyond its origins as the language of the UNIX operating system.
The growing popularity of C, the changes in the language over the years, and the creation of compilers by groups not involved in its design, combined to demonstrate a need for a more precise and more contemporary definition of the language than the First edition of this book provided. In 1983, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) established a committee whose goal was to produce "an unambiguous and machine-independent definition of the language C," while still retaining its spirit. The result is the ANSI standard for C.
The standard formalizes constructions that were hinted at but not described in the first edition, particularly structure assignment and enumerations. It provides a new form of function declaration that permits cross-checking of defini-tion with use. It specifies a standard library, with an extensive set of functions for performing input and output, memory management, string manipulation, and similar tasks. It makes precise the behavior of features that were not spelled out in the original definition, and at the same time states explicitly which aspects of the language remain machine-dependent.
This second edition of The C Programming Language describes C as defined by the ANSI standard. Although we have noted the places where the language has evolved, we have chosen to write exclusively in the new form. For the most part, this makes no significant difference; the most visible change is the new form of function declaration and definition. Modern compilers already support most features of the standard.
We have tried to retain the brevity of the first edition. C is not a big language, and it is not well served by a big book. We have improved the exposition of critical features, such as pointers, that are central to C programming. We have refined the original examples, and have added new examples in several chapters. For instance, the treatment of complicated declarations is augmented by programs that convert declarations into words and vice versa. As before, all examples have been tested directly from the text, which is in machine-readable form.
Appendix A, the reference manual, is not the standard, but our attempt to convey the essentials of the standard in a smaller space. It is meant for easy comprehension by programmers, but not as a definition for compiler writersÑ that role properly belongs to the standard itself. Appendix B is a summary of the facilities of the standard library. It too is meant for reference by programmers, not implementers. Appendix C is a concise summary of the changes from the original version.
As we said in the preface to the first edition, C "wears well as one's experience with it grows." With a decade more experience, we still feel that way. We hope that this book will help you to learn C and to use it well.Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. RitchiePreface to the First Edition
C is a general-purpose programming language which features economy of expression, modern control flow and data structures, and a rich set of operators. C is not a "very high level" language, nor a "big" one, and is not specialized to any particular area of application. But its absence of restrictions and its generality make it more convenient and effective for many tasks than
supposedly more powerful languages.
C was originally designed for and implemented on the UNIX operating sys-tem on the DEC PDP-1 1, by Dennis Ritchie. The operating system, the C compiler, and essentially all UNIX applications programs (including all of the software used to prepare this book) are written in C. Production compilers also exist for several other machines, including the IBM System/370, the Honeywell 6000, and the Interdata 8/32. C is not tied to any particular hardware or system, however, and it is easy to write programs that will run without change on any machine that supports C.
This book is meant to help the reader learn how to program in C. It contains a tutorial introduction to get new users started as soon as possible, separate chapters on each major feature, and a reference manual. Most of the treatment is based on reading, writing and revising examples, rather than on mere statements of rules. For the most part, the examples are complete, real programs, rather than isolated fragments. All examples have been tested directly from the text, which is in machine-readable form. Besides showing how to make
effective use of the language, we have also tried where possible to illustrate useful
algorithms and principles of good style and sound design.
The book is not an introductory programming manual; it assumes some familiarity with basic programming concepts like variables, assignment statements, loops, and functions. Nonetheless, a novice programmer should be able to read along and pick up the language, although access to a more knowledgeable colleague will help.
In our experience, C has proven to be a pleasant, expressive, and versatile language for a wide variety of programs. It is easy to learn, and it wears well as one's experience with it grows. We hope that this book will help you to use it well.Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie
About the Author
Brian W. Kernighan received his BASc from the University of Toronto in 1964 and a PhD in electrical engineering from Princeton in 1969. He was a member of the Computing Science Research center at Bell Labs until 2000, and is now a professor in the Computer Science Department at Princeton. He was a co-creator of several programming languages, including AWK, AMPL, and a number of tools for document preparation. He is the co-author of 10 books and some technical papers, and holds 4
patents. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2002. His research areas include programming languages, tools and interfaces that make computers easier to use, often for non-specialist users. He is also interested in technology
education for non-technical audiences.
Dennis Ritchie was a computer scientist notable for his influence on ALTRAN, B, BCPL, C, Multics, and Unix.
Product details
- Publisher : Pearson; 2nd edition (March 22, 1988)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0131103628
- ISBN-13 : 978-0131103627
- Item Weight : 1.14 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.1 x 0.6 x 9.2 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #11,520 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2 in Computer Programming Languages
- #2 in C Programming Language
- #11 in Computer Software (Books)
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Not only are the authors well qualified, but they communicate very effectively in concise and clear language. The authors do not pander or condescend to readers. They make no claims to teach C in only one day; they actually expect readers to have a basic grasp on various programming concepts. The authors show an earnest desire to help programmers learn the language. The code examples provided are very helpful and exceptionally elegantly coded. As other reviewers have noted, they help instill good coding habits from the start.
K&R2 provides a helpful introduction to programmers, which gives an overview of what the C programming language is (and is not). The introduction explains C's typing system and basic features. The meat of the book is well organized into chapters that sequentially build upon previous chapters. Chapter 5, "Pointers and Arrays," for example, does a great job at elucidating a difficult computer science concept. A lot of people are well aware of nasty bugs deriving from using pointers and arrays, but the authors explain pointers and arrays in a very clear way, which draws the important distinctions between them.
After the main tutorial chapters, the appendix follows in an amazingly compact, yet thorough reference, which includes a C grammar, overview of the standard libraries, and more. Oftentimes, this reference is the most convenient and concise source for information (note that the C Standard is *the* authoritative source on the C specification). For example, the section covering the "*printf" and "*scanf" conversion specifiers is extremely helpful and much easier to digest than most man pages.
For such a relatively small text, it's amazing how thorough it is. Although it's no substitute for having a copy of the ISO C Standard at hand, it's still an indispensable reference to have. Also, since C99 has yet to be fully implemented on many common implementations, developers still look to the ANSI C standard for ensuring their code is as portable as possible.
I feel K&R2 is the best reference for learning C; it has been considered canon for all these years for a reason.
This book is a feisty little devil! I had heard of this book before diving in (it is a classic), but its size and table of contents lead me to believe I would breeze right through it. Wrong! Picking up the syntax wasn't too difficult and I have a fairly good handle on more advanced concepts like pointers already, but this book is absolutely packed with exercises and many of them are quite challenging!
Here's one:
"Write a program to check a C program for syntax errors like unbalanced parenthesis, brackets and braces. Don't forget about quotes, both single and double, escape sequences, and comments."
This is a chapter 1 exercise! Chapter 1 is just a tutorial introduction chapter and this is one 1 of 24 exercises in this chapter! No wonder it takes people years to work through this tiny book. I'm only about halfway through as I write this review.
This book is the perfect blend of reference material, practical knowledge and challenging exercises. There is absolutely no fluff and not a single word is wasted. I grow tired of pouring through 1,000+ page tomes. The appendices are also very well structured and extremely helpful.
Although I do virtually no C coding professionally, I can say for certain that this book has leveled up my skill-set. Working through these exercises has helped me with logical thinking and having a better understanding of coding closer to the machine has improved me as a developer overall. I'm one who believes that this book is great for all programmers, even if you never write a line of C after working through this book. I'm really loving the C language!
Whether you are a beginner or experienced it's worth having this book. Though this will be quite tough for total beginners, I say it's still work picking up and pairing it with a more beginner-friendly book. Unfortunately I cannot recommend such a book at this time because this is the only C book I've worked through.
If you make it through this book and follow along with all the exercises and complete all the challenges then you will have a working knowledge of the C language. You might not be the greatest programmer in the world when you finish but you will have the most solid foundation possible to build upon. At first a lot of the concepts might not make sense and you may find yourself reading some chapters multiple times, I know I did. The book is challenging but like most things worth learning in life programming is not easy. Programming is a long journey and one where you never really stop learning. Everything you do in this book make seem pointless and you may think that you are doing simple tasks the long way because in some ways you are but no one ever started programming by writing a AAA application on the first try.
Don't buy into books that promise to teach you how to build hardcore games or applications right off the bat. You need a foundation for that knowledge and this is where you can get it. Don't jump in the deep end of the pool before you learn to swim or you may regret that decision later.
Having been programming for years this is one of the few books that I continue to carry with me and it has survived every summer cleaning of my bookshelf. It truly is an invaluable resource. I suggest you pick it up if you have any interest in programming.
Top reviews from other countries
Beh, sarò strano io... ma programmare in C da una sensazione di libertà espressiva che mi mancava da molto tempo.
Detto questo, che a voi fregherà relativamente, veniamo al libro: semplicemente la Bibbia di questo linguaggio storico, non deve mancare nella libreria di un Software Engineer.