Book: Effective C

The world runs on code written in the C programming language, yet most schools begin the curriculum with Python or Java. Effective C bridges this gap and brings C into the modern era—covering the modern C17 Standard as well as potential C2x features. With the aid of this instant classic, you’ll soon be writing professional, portable, and secure C programs to power robust systems and solve real-world problems.

Robert C. Seacord introduces C and the C Standard Library while addressing best practices, common errors, and open debates in the C community. Developed together with other C Standards committee experts, Effective C will teach you how to debug, test, and analyze C programs. You’ll benefit from Seacord’s concise explanations of C language constructs and behaviors, and from his 40 years of coding experience.

You’ll learn:

• How to identify and handle undefined behavior in a C program
• The range and representations of integers and floating-point values
• How dynamic memory allocation works and how to use nonstandard functions
• How to use character encodings and types
• How to perform I/O with terminals and file systems using C Standard streams and POSIX file descriptors
• How to understand the C compiler’s translation phases and the role of the preprocessor
• How to test, debug, and analyze C programs

Effective C will teach you how to write professional, secure, and portable C code that will stand the test of time.

DAY ONE
GETTING STARTED WITH C

• Developing Your First C Program
• Compiling and Running Your Program
• Editors and Integrated Development Environments
  
• Compilers
• GNU Compiler Collection
• Clang
• Microsoft Visual Studio
• Portability
• Implementation-Defined Behavior
• Unspecified Behavior
• Undefined Behavior
• Locale-Specific Behavior and Common Extensions

OBJECTS, FUNCTIONS, AND TYPES

• Objects, Functions, Types, and Pointers
• Declaring Variables
• Swapping Values
• Scope
• Storage Duration
• Alignment
• Object Types
• Boolean Types
• Character Types
• Numerical Types
• void Types
• Function Types
• Derived Types
• Pointer Types
• Arrays
• Structures
• Unions
• Tags
• Type Qualifiers

DAY TWO
ARITHMETIC TYPES

• Integers
• Padding and Precision
• The <limits.h> Header File
• Declaring Integers
• Unsigned Integers
• Signed Integers
• Integer Constants
• Floating-Point
• Arithmetic Conversion
• Integer Conversion Rank
• Integer Promotions
• Usual Arithmetic Conversions
• Safe Conversions

EXPRESSIONS AND OPERATORS

• Simple Assignment
• Evaluations
• Function Invocation
• Increment and Decrement Operators
• Operator Precedence and Associativity
• Order of Evaluation
• Unsequenced and Indeterminately Sequenced Evaluations
• Sequence Points
• sizeof Operator
• Arithmetic Operators
• Unary + and – Operators
• Logical Negation Operator
• Multiplicative Operators
• Additive Operators
• Bitwise Operators
• Complement Operator
• Shift Operators
• Bitwise AND Operator
• Bitwise Exclusive OR Operator
• Bitwise Inclusive OR Operator
• Logical Operators
• Cast Operators
• Conditional Operator
• _Alignof Operator
• Relational Operators
• Compound Assignment Operators
• Comma Operator
• Pointer Arithmetic