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The C Book: Featuring the ANSI C Standard (Second Edition) by Mike Banahan & Declan Brady & Mark Doran Recommended

ISBN: 0-201-54433-4       Publisher: Addison-Wesley       Pages: 310pp       Price: £18.95

Categories:   advanced c

Reviewed by David Cleaver in C Vu 3-6 (Sep 1991)

Mike Banahan, a member of the ANSI C Standard Committee, and his fellow authors have written a very readable book on the potentially heavy subject of ANSI Standard C. They have set out in plain terms their understanding of what the Standard states and the reasoning behind it.

The main difference between this second edition and the first edition is that it is now based on the approved ANSI standard, whereas the first edition was based on the 1988 Draft Standard. New material includes additional summary information and a chapter applying C and Standard Libraries to solving a number of small problems.

The preface provides a potted history of C, reasons for its popularity, a history of the ANSI Standards and the rationale behind the book.

The ten chapters then follow closely the sequence of topics taught in the Instruction Set's introductory course (all three authors work for the Instruction Set). The chapter headings are: An Introduction to C, Variables and Arithmetic, Control of Flow and Logical Expressions, Functions, Arrays and Pointers, Structured Data Types, The Preprocessor, Specialised Areas of C, Libraries and Complete Programs in C. Also included are answers to the exercises and an index. Quite apart from the occasional mid-chapter summary, there is a clear summary at the end of each chapter.

I found the book to be full of good advice and never shy to offer its opinion and reasoning. Whilst readers might disagree with the opinion of the authors, they could not fault the clarity of their reasoning. Personally, I agree for the most part with the opinions expressed in the book. It is in the book's favour that the authors show clearly where they are quoting the Standard as opposed to expressing their opinion.

As a relatively newcomer to C, I found the subject of the book enlightening.

For example, I had not previously realised that the function 'getenv' was part of the Standard while the opposite function 'putenv' is not.

Whilst the majority of subjects were covered with due sympathy towards the reader, I found the section on localization unclear and, after several readings, have given up looking for the link between function 'strftime' and the locale.

In summary I would recommend this comprehensive tutorial in ANSI Standard C programming and the Standard Libraries to any member of the target readership.