C: A Reference Manual (5th Edition) |  | Authors: Samuel P. Harbison, Guy L. Steele
Publisher: Prentice Hall
List Price: $55.00
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Rating:  47 reviews
Sales Rank: 165005
Media: Paperback
Edition: 5
Pages: 560
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.9 x 1
ISBN: 013089592X
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.133
EAN: 9780130895929
ASIN: 013089592X
Publication Date: March 3, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
You can find bigger books about C, but you won't find one as authoritative or helpful as this reference manual. Harbison and Steele have now gone through four editions and are beginning to cover language differences which can surprise the experienced C coder moving to C++. As always, the authors do an excellent job of explaining what's standard and what it replaces. No hairy syntax has been omitted, so this volume can make wending one's way through obfuscated code, if not pleasant, at least less miserable. Whether you learned C from Kernighan or some massive tome, you'll want this volume as your day-to-day reference. And you won't mind buying a new edition once in a while, because you'll have worn the old one out by then.
Product Description
This authoritative reference manual provides a complete description of the C language, the run-time libraries, and a style of C programming that emphasizes correctness, portability, and maintainability. The authors describe the C language more clearly and in more detail than in any other book.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 47
 Excellent but needs updating October 4, 2009
Grant (Boulder, CO)
If you don't already have this reference and are a professional C programmer, you better get it NOW!!!
I've used this since the 2nd edition getting each new edition as soon as released, one copy for the office and one for home. I prefer it over K&R by leaps and bounds. It's much easier to read and find information than K&R. The examples are better and are much more explanatory.
The only problems are that it needs updating, reformatting and modernization (styling to MISRA and/or CERT-C standard would be nice).
It also doesn't cover all the features of the language, as an example "volatile" is missing so you'll still need K&R. If the above were resolved, I'd dump K&R altogether and give it 5 stars.
 About those index omissions... August 8, 2009
Mark Dale (Orlando, FL USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The "most helpful critical review" reviewer claims the index is incomplete. An example refers to the word "const", which the reviewer claims has its own section (4.4.4) yet is not found in the index. That's funny. I own the 4th edition, and I found "const" in the index refering to, you guessed it, section 4.4.4. It's on page 81 in the 4th edition. It was even easy to find. I looked under "C". I strongly suspect it's in the 5th edition also. I'd say this "most helpful critical review" is highly suspect. BTW, I think this is an extremely helpful book, and am considering buying the 5th edition just for those 20+ extra pages. The 4th provided the sound and solid information I needed to succeed as a C programmer, and it may have even saved my career more than once.
An amazing reference manual December 30, 2008
Aaron Smith (San Francisco, CA)
To be honest, I haven't done a lot of C programming. But when I need to, this is the place to go. It has reference material for just about anything you can imagine about the C language. And the cross referencing throughout the book is great. For me it replaces K&R without a doubt.
The thing that I value the most about it, is that it is a true reference. It's not meant to be a "teach you C" book, it's a book that assumes you know what you're doing, and you just need to look up information about the language. And I must say, everything is *thoroughly* covered. Then going beyond the C language in terms of syntactical grammar, it includes reference for the standard C library.
So, even if you've been programming C for years, you would probably enjoy this book, and possible learn something you didn't know, just from it's completeness. Or, for new developers to C, I would use this as a supplement to another "teach you C" style book. When going through a "teach you C" style book, look up the concepts that may be confusing, or incomplete in this book, and I'd bet you'll learn twice as much just from having this next to you.
Enjoy!
Nice Book January 2, 2008
Madan M. Reddy (Omaha, NE)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book contains nice layout of information on C Programming. A nice reference to have.
Best book on C99 September 3, 2007
Paul Floyd (Grenoble France)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Whilst I feel that K&R is a classic for C(89/90), it doesn't cover C99 at all. This is where Harbison takes over. It isn't quite in the same concise style. But it does serve well as both a clear description of the language and a reference. It's much easier to read than the ISO C 99 standard (which is also on my desk).
Showing reviews 1-5 of 47
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