About This Book
This book was written with two groups of readers in mind. Whether you
are new to C and want to learn it, or already know the older version of the
language but want to nd out more about the new standard, we hope that
you will nd what follows both instructive and at times entertaining too.
This is not a tutorial introduction to programming. The book is designed
for programmers who already have some experience of using a modern high-
level procedural programming language. As we explain later, C isn't really
appropriate for complete beginners{though many have managed to use it{
so the book will assume that its readers have already done battle with the
notions of statements, variables, conditional execution, arrays, procedures (or
subroutines) and so on. Instead of wasting your time by ploughing through
tedious descriptions of how to add two numbers together and explaining that
the symbol for multiplication is *, the book concentrates on the things that
are special to C. In particular, it's the way that C is used which is emphasized.
Those who already know C will be interested in the new Standard and how
it a ects existing C programs. The e ect on existing programs might not
at rst seem to be important to newcomers, but in fact the `old' and new
versions of the language are an issue for the beginner too. For some years
after the approval of the Standard, programmers will have to live in a world
where they can easily encounter a mixture of both the new and the old
language, depending on the age of the programs that they are working with.
For that reason, the book highlights where the old and new features di er
signi cantly. Some of the old features are no ornament to the language
and are well worth avoiding; the Standard goes so far as to consider them
obsolescent and recommends that they should not be used. For that reason
they are not described in detail, but only far enough to allow a reader to
understand what they mean. Anybody who intends to write programs using
these old-style features should be reading a di erent book.
This is the second edition of the book, which has been revised to refer to the
final, approved version of the Standard. The rst edition of the book was
based on a draft of the Standard which did contain some di erences from
the draft that was eventually approved. During the revision we have taken
the opportunity to include more summary material and an extra chapter
illustrating the use of C and the Standard Library to solve a number of small
problems.
This book was written with two groups of readers in mind. Whether you
are new to C and want to learn it, or already know the older version of the
language but want to nd out more about the new standard, we hope that
you will nd what follows both instructive and at times entertaining too.
This is not a tutorial introduction to programming. The book is designed
for programmers who already have some experience of using a modern high-
level procedural programming language. As we explain later, C isn't really
appropriate for complete beginners{though many have managed to use it{
so the book will assume that its readers have already done battle with the
notions of statements, variables, conditional execution, arrays, procedures (or
subroutines) and so on. Instead of wasting your time by ploughing through
tedious descriptions of how to add two numbers together and explaining that
the symbol for multiplication is *, the book concentrates on the things that
are special to C. In particular, it's the way that C is used which is emphasized.
Those who already know C will be interested in the new Standard and how
it a ects existing C programs. The e ect on existing programs might not
at rst seem to be important to newcomers, but in fact the `old' and new
versions of the language are an issue for the beginner too. For some years
after the approval of the Standard, programmers will have to live in a world
where they can easily encounter a mixture of both the new and the old
language, depending on the age of the programs that they are working with.
For that reason, the book highlights where the old and new features di er
signi cantly. Some of the old features are no ornament to the language
and are well worth avoiding; the Standard goes so far as to consider them
obsolescent and recommends that they should not be used. For that reason
they are not described in detail, but only far enough to allow a reader to
understand what they mean. Anybody who intends to write programs using
these old-style features should be reading a di erent book.
This is the second edition of the book, which has been revised to refer to the
final, approved version of the Standard. The rst edition of the book was
based on a draft of the Standard which did contain some di erences from
the draft that was eventually approved. During the revision we have taken
the opportunity to include more summary material and an extra chapter
illustrating the use of C and the Standard Library to solve a number of small
problems.
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