C Pocket Reference

O'Reilly Pocket Reference

by Peter Prinz, Ulla Kirch-Prinz

C is one of the oldest programming languages and still one of the most widely used. Whether you're an experienced C programmer or you're new to the language, you know how frustrating it can be to hunt through hundreds of pages in your reference books to find that bit of information on a certain function, type or other syntax element. Or even worse, you may not have your books with you. Your answer is the C Pocket Reference . Concise and easy to use, this handy pocket guide to C is a must-have quick reference for any C programmer. It's the only C reference that fits in your pocket and is an excellent companion to O'Reilly's other C books.

Ideal as an introduction for beginners and a quick reference for advanced programmers, the C Pocket Reference consists of two a compact description of the C language and a thematically structured reference to the standard library. The representation of the language is based on the ANSI standard and includes extensions introduced in 1999. An index is included to help you quickly find the information you need.

This small book covers the O'Reilly's Pocket References have become a favorite among programmers everywhere. By providing a wealth of important details in a concise, well-organized format, these handy books deliver just what you need to complete the task at hand. When you've reached a sticking point in your work and need to get to a solution quickly, the new C Pocket Reference is the book you'll want to have.

Genres: Reference, Programming, Software, Computer Science, Computers, Nonfiction, Technical

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Marshall · Rating 2 out of 5]

This little book is a decent quick reference guide to the C programming language. I has most things you need, but unfortunately a lot of what you usually don't. I wish it was organized and prioritized better. It gives a long tutorial on the language itself, but skimps on the standard library, which is what most C programmers will need to refer to most often. When it does describe the standard library, it focuses too much on things most programmers don't use, such as all the new macros for complex numbers and trigonometry, but then glosses over string handling. It spells out the struct for lconv (which I've never used) and doesn't spell out the struct for tm (which I often use). For these reasons, I mostly stick to man pages and cppreference.com instead, but it's nice to have this on the desk while coding.

[James Ravenscroft · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great little guide to some of C's best kept secrets. A book I almost always have on me if I'm writing any code.

[Mic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very handy. To the point.

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a beginner in C programming, but this book helped me to understand the key concepts of this programming language in an easier way, although not too easy but it's understandable,
It's not a standalone book, therefore don't expect to learn all the C paradigms just reading thoroughly this book.


If you are interested in this book, I highly recommend you to buy another book too, because it contains more details that are crucial to understand deeply C. It contains also a lot of examples. So, it is a good investment for your future career. I'm talking about the book of Kernighan Ritchie.

To sum up, this pocket reference does its job: the reference. And Kernighan Ritchie's book fills the gaps. So use them simultaneously.