CSE 142: C References

For CSE/ENGR 142, you really don't need any books apart from the textbook and the course notes. Beginning computer programming doesn't work like History or Psychology, where the more background reading you do the better off you are.

If you want another book to buy, there is a huge selection in the computer section of the University Bookstore. The range of choices you find there can be overwhelming. Many of the books are aimed at people who already know another programming language and who just want to learn C. Others are aimed at casual computer users who want to learn a little about programming. Still others are reference manuals for people who already know C and need more details about it. As a student in 142, you might fit into one or more of those categories, or none. Pick a book that fits your background and learning style.

If you plan to continue in computer science, you might eventually want to buy some C books for your library. But browse leisurely before you buy.

C Reference Books

Reference books are different from textbooks. They are not beginner's books, but rather are terse, precise definitions of much of the language. Valuable to those of you who expect to do lots of C programming (CSE majors for example), but probably not so useful to more casual programmers.

Brian W. Kernighan & Dennis M. Ritchie, The C Programming Language, Prentice Hall, 1988. Until a few years ago, this was the book to have, if you were having only one. It is still widely used and quoted. Often you will find it referred to simply as "K&R." Now that C is an ANSI/ISO standard, K&R is not quite as essential as it used to be, but it still highly recommended.
ANSI/ISO Standard 9899-1990: C Programming Language, American National Standards Institute, 1990. This is the official description of the C language. To buy it directly from ANSI is a little expensive. A better choice is the book by Schildt below.
Herbert Schildt, The Annotated ANSI C Standard, Osborne McGraw-Hill, 1990. This book contains the entire ANSI standard (on the left side of each facing page), with annotations on the right side. {Caution: in some copies of the book, the left-hand p. 131 is duplicated as p.132, and the true p.132 is missing.}
P.J. Plauger and Jim Brodie, Standard C: A Reference, Prentice Hall, 1996. A great book, compact, easy to read, and inexpensive. What's more, when you buy the book you get a diskette with the full text of the book in HTML. Who could pass this up?
Samuel P. Harbison & Guy L. Steele Jr., C, A Reference Manual, Prentice Hall, 1995.

Reserve Books

A number of books about C are permanently on reserve in the Engineering Library.

For Advanced C Programmers

Steve McConnell, Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction. Microsoft Press, 1993. A great book whose intention is to "narrow the gap between the knowledge of industry gurus and professors on the one hand and common commercial practice on the other." Examples are given in Pascal and C. Much of the discussion about style and defensive programming practices is useful even for beginning programmers.
Steve McGuire, Writing Solid Code: Microsoft's Techniques for Developing Bug-Free C Programs. Microsoft Press, 1993. The title tells the story. A collection of tips for writing programs which debug themselves.
Peter van der Linden, Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets, Prentice Hall, 1994. An absolutely terrific book: funny, insightful, authoritative, beautifully written, crammed with interesting stuff. Not for beginners, however.

C Book Reviews

A lengthy and now very outdated document grabbed off the net that reviews about 25 C books, from begining to advanced.

The C and C++ Review (plain text, about 100k).

Want To Learn C On Your Own?

If you are looking for self-instruction in C, check out the reviews in The C and C++ Review of "Teach Yourself C" and "New C Primer Plus, 2nd ed.", which seemed to be his favorites among C-as-a-2nd-(programming)-language books.

Various Online C Resources

Like a lot of web sites, these come and go faster than we can keep up with...

Material linked from Stanford's CS Library include Essential C and an number of tutorials on 142/143 topics.
The Pacific Galaxy Developers Club describes itself as "a software development club set up with the main intention of encouraging and offering assistance to novices or beginners who are picking up C or C++ programming." Membership is free.
Learn C/C++ Today: This is a very nice compilation of tutorials, book reviews and other C stuff.
Programming in C: an online C course in England.
The C FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) List: A great source of C lore. I've put several links below because the various servers are often busy, and because the text versions may be updated more frequently than the html (Netscape) versions.
- The C FAQ (abridged) (plain text version, about 40k).
- The C FAQ (unabridged) (plain text version, about 150k).
- The C FAQ (unabridged) (html version).
- The C FAQ (unabridged) (html version).
- C FAQ index as provided by the author of the FAQ himself.
Many colleges and universities offer courses which teach C. Many of them have Web sites with lots of good information, examples, problems, lecture slides, etc.

Free C Software?

A former 142 student reported finding a list of freeware compilers and interpreters here. Let us know if you find any of this especially useful.