Re: [tlug] good C book for iso c99?

[Attila Kinali <attila@example.com>]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:17:47 +0900
"Miles Colman" <mcolman@example.com> wrote:

> anyone know of a good reference/learning book that includes features of iso
> c99? I keep hearing about K&R but it's ooooold.

K&R is IMHO one of the best books around to learn C, although
it is definitly in need of an update.

I also often recomend Prata's "C++ Primer Plus", which has an
IMHO excelent introduction in to programming with a C-based
language. If you just read up to the point where classes
are introduced, you'll get a good overview of how to write
C with a reasonable style. (Side note: C++ is, contrary to the
common opinion, not a superset of C. There are various little
differences. But fortunately, they don't matter until you get
to a more advanced level of programming)
 
Other than those two books, i can only recommend to read
the C99 standard itself which is freely available on the
net. If you know how to write C and only have to look up
exact definitions, then this is a viable way to go.

> Context, if you want to know:
> I'm just learning C, and my book has been teaching me stuff like:
> my_struct_ptr = (int* ) malloc( sizeof( my_struct) );
> my C book (c. 1994, On to C by Patrick Winston) says you should always make
> casts like this, or the type will be undefined. C curricula on the web of a
> similar vintage say the same thing (cf. eg
> http://www-ee.eng.hawaii.edu/~tep/EE150/book/chap14/subsection2.1.2.1.html )
> However, wikipedia has more recent info, which explains why the cast is no
> longer necessary:
> http://faq.cprogramming.com/cgi-bin/smartfaq.cgi?id=1043284351&answer=1047673478

Uhmm.. to cast or not to cast, this is the question.
There are two groups of people out there, one who say
that there should be always a cast and those who say
you should never cast unless really necessary.

There are various arguments for each side, but none
of them are really convincing.

I normaly go the way inbetween those extremes. I cast
whenever the compiler complains about a missing cast
or when it might be ambigous, but generally let the
compiler figure out what to cast when.

Also a good way is to lurk on the developer mailinglists
of OSS projects that are performance critical. There
often discussions about the right style of C to tell
the compiler how to do something the way the programmer
intents arise.

Oh, btw: be aware that gcc has lots of bugs. Thus if
you ever hit a strange problem, have a look at the
assembler output of gcc and check whether it has
done the right thing.

				Attila Kinali

-- 
Praised are the Fountains of Shelieth, the silver harp of the waters,
But blest in my name forever this stream that stanched my thirst!
                         -- Deed of Morred