Ideal C book for reference

Don't know if you're right or wrong. Never heard of M&B.

But the best up-to-date C reference manual is H&S, for Harbison and Steele's "C: A Reference Manual", now in its fifth edition, and encompassing everything from pre-standard "traditional" C through C99.

Regards, -=Dave

That part of the argument was based on way outdated information. There are two editions of K&R. The second, which really should be the only one you can even find any more these days, does cover ANSI C. It doesn't cover post-ANSI additions to the standard, though --- but those were done by ISO/IEC, not ANSI.

I don't know about the second edition of K&R, but I prefer Harbison & Steele over K&R -- mostly because Harbison & Steele is a better _reference_ manual for when you need to remind yourself of just one tidbit. K&R is written in a much more tutorial style which means you have to read more of it to get that one part you _really_ needed. H&S is also, IMHO, better at helping you to write really portable code.

As long as you avoid Herbert Schildt (the L could well be silent) you can't go too far wrong with K&R and H&S.

pete

Op Mon, 15 May 2006 09:02:46 -0700 schreef Tim Wescott:

The second edition came out in 1988. Where have you been ?

I hate "me too" postings but another "vote" for Harbison & Steele can't hurt. It's the one to get if you only get one.

Off using Harbison and Steele for all my C reference needs.

What's an engima?

H+S is good. What's the equiv for C++? I have a number of C++ books, but I couldn't say any of them compare to H+S.

Mills & Boon? ;)

Regards,

-- Mark McDougall, Engineer Virtual Logic Pty Ltd,

That's the mother of all engines.

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curious, what's wrong with Herbert Schildt?

Don't think I'd get much joy with one of those!

Seriously - many thanks for all the posts. Greatly appreciated.

His books are a synonym for misinformation. Some function adequately as kindling.

In this particular case it doesn't matter too much, but in general on usenet you should realize that readers may very well not have convenient access to previous articles in a thread. That means that your reply articles should include adequate context, so that they stand by themselves. Google is NOT usenet, it is only a very poor interface to the real usenet system. To include proper context when using google, see my sig. below. Please be sure to read the referenced URLs.

I think you're suffering from seasonal allegories.

You'll be pleased to see that I have read your opinions on google groups. Don't be too harsh on google groups, for some people it can be the only method for accessing usenet. As in my example, my ability at work to access newsgroups disappeared down the toilet a few years ago. It's something to do with our ISP account and I have no control over it. Up until that point I was a very happy mozilla/thunderbird user.

With regards to Herbert Schildt's books being "a synonym for misinformation", do you have any examples? I have a chiminea at home that could make use of a possibly redundant complete reference to C (4th edition) that I have at work.

"Windows 95 is a mouse based operating system" (Quoting from memory, I'll try to find the actual text when I get home.)

See the ACCU book reviews at

Nothing, probably, except that he never should have been allowed to write books about stuff he clearly doesn't have a clue about.

In article , Fred writes

K&R2 was basically ANSI C (C89) since then there have been 2 and a half versions of ISO C ending with C99 + TC's

In article , Rob writes

I don't see how that is.

Then change ISP to a decent one. There are more than enough out there.

I had a fellow member of the ISO C panel who for a party piece would take HS's Annotated C reference book. Explain that the standard was on the even numbered pages and HS's comments were on the odd numbered pages. He would then ask the audience to call out odd numbers at random. He would turn to that page and find at least one error in the authors work.

There are several on line pages of examples of the errors in HS's books None has been challenged by the author. Neither has he AFAIK threatened any one with legal action over the comments in print.

Just search on the name and the book title I am sure you will find many examples of why not to buy.