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C: A Reference Manual (5th Edition)
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Author: Samuel P. Harbison, Guy L. Steele
List Price: $44.99
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 013089592X
Publisher: Prentice Hall (21 February, 2002)
Edition: Paperback
Sales Rank: 13,486
Average Customer Rating: 4.7 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 5 out of 5
A reference + more
My friend borrowed this book from me about two weeks ago and won't give it back, I have since turned to my left side over 20 times looking for it to no avail (serious). If I was to describe this book in one word it would be "Clean", everything in this book is just beautiful, from the ease of use, to the technical details, to even it's fonts and thickness of the pages, everything is so clean and precise that the book makes you want to read it and perhaps even keep it on a pillow next to you at night (but enough about my sheltered life).One thing that I did not expect before receiving this book was the amazing language overview that comes with the book, they could have sold the book with just that part and it would have still been great. The overview goes into great detail and is really good at pointing out things that other C books miss and the fact that the author is well versed on all the features of the latest C99 Standard adds even more to the wealth of information. My favorite part of the book is the part on the C Pre-processor, which had a great deal of information that I was not previously aware of. Apart from that, there is the reference side which has all the detail you could ever want in a standard library reference book, all in a very simple to search format (Oh yeah and I should mention, the index kicks ....). So long story short, if you want a single book that you can turn to for 99.9% of your standard C problems, divorce your wife and give that spot in your bed to "C: A Reference Manual (5th Edition)"... or 6th if it's out by the time you read this review. ps. If your looking for this book in a bookstore make sure the lady types in "C: A Reference Manual (5th Edition)" and not "See: A Reference Manual (5th Edition)", long story, I'll tell you another time. Hope you enjoyed reading this
Rating: 5 out of 5
my choice for a desert island
This book has the thoroughness that Kernighan and Ritchie (another well known C Reference) sacrifice for the sake of brevity. Buy this after K & R. It is the only other book on C you will ever need. My one complaint is the poor quality of the index, but this flaw is not enough to withold 5 stars.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Excellent text but inadequate index
This is a very complete book, but unfortunately, I have found its index to be inadequate. Several times now, I have gone looking in the index for something, and couldn't find it. More persistent searching throught the table of contents and the text showed that the item was in fact there. Here's a blatant example: "const" has no entry in the index. This, despite the fact that section 4.4.4 on page 89 is called "4.4.4 Const" and the book devotes the next 2 pages to the use of "const". Similar sounding entries in the index (e.g. constants, etc.) do not refer you to this page anywhere. That's simply unbelievable that the heading of a section does not appear in the index.
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