Customer Reviews

C: The Complete Reference, 4th Ed.

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Having come across Schild's book when starting out as a programmer I
believed it to be one of the best I've read. In this respect it is
very good for a beginner, but searching now for a reference manual
(I've misplaced the misnomer: "C, A Complete Reference") as a
more experienced programmer I realise this is really a
tutorial.

Comparing it against other C reference books I now see the
deficiencies. Schild's book tries to be all things to all men:

oOo
Tutorial: A very chatty manner as it leads you through the workings of
each area, I like the description of "make", albeit brief.

oOo
Reference manual: It covers most of the C language, but there is
incomplete coverage of the C language (eg errno, and bzero).

oOo
Algorithm book: It describes the use of Artificial Intelligence, but
this is such a huge area it only wets the appetite. A reader
attracted by these areas would better off buying a book which
concentrates on these areas specifically and in greater depth.

I was
disappointed to discover the third edition of this book had the C++
overview removed. The new section, "a C interpreter", which I
suspect is to pad out the book after removing the useful chapters from
previous editions is practically useless. It would have been better
to write something similar to Steel's coverage of writing 'clean C'
where a C program runs in a C++ environment to distinguish the
conflict areas between C and C++.

Another failing of Schild's book
is the all too brief coverage of some areas summarised with the cop
out "consult your manufacturer's manual for details".

In the
format of a good reference book, Schild lays down many parts of the C
language under function headings such as "signal". However,
towards the end of each description is a section entitled "see
related functions" with an incomplete list of references; for
example under "signal" it is "raise", but missing
"ssignal, psignal, gsignal". Instead of spreading descriptions
around like this it would be easier to read if related functions were
grouped under a similar heading, so the reader isn't distracted
searching for them.

Schild's book has moved from discussing C in a
DOS environment in his first edition to a Windows environment in the
third edition. Although Schild does cover UNIX, the platform where C
originated, he has skimmed the surface like a pebble across a
pond.

I once wrote a fairly negative web page about the 3rd edition of this book. The 4th edition corrects some of the errors, but many more remain. Schildt's writing is very friendly, but he frankly does not know C well enough to be writing about it. His example code is full of errors. Some might prevent things from working immediately; others would be more subtle, and might not show up until you tried to run stuff in production.

All the people dismissing this as nitpicking have missed the point. *THE C LANGUAGE IS VERY PICKY*. If you want a friendly language that doesn't care whether you know what you're doing, don't program in C. C doesn't just let you shoot yourself in the foot, it helpfully picks the gun back up, reloads it, and hands it back to you, already pointed at your other foot.

Newbies who learn from Schildt's books either stay clueless or spend years overcoming the various misunderstandings they acquired from them.

Seriously, stay away. It's a huge book, it's full of text, but the text is full of errors, and if you try to learn C from this book, you'll end up disadvantaged. There are many better books, and few I'd call worse. (Some are less well-written, but that at least means that you don't pick up their mistakes.)

I opened this book to a random page (page 259), and found a program which had at least six errors in it, some fairly serious. The net result is that the program does not illustrate anything, may not work on some systems, and that it is completely obvious that the author never, ever, ran the program to see what it did. (You can tell, because if he had, he would have noticed that it never displays the output prompt he prints.)

Schildt makes numerous errors.
One example:
printf("%f", sizeof f);

Clearly wrong: sizeof f has does not have type double.
Another example:

/* Write 6 integers to a disk file. */
void put_rec(int rec[6], FILE *fp)
{
int len;
len = fwrite(rec, sizeof rec, 1, fp);
if (len != 1) printf("write error");
}

Wrong again; rec is converted to a pointer to int, rather than an array of 6 ints, because it is in the parameter of a function (try it if you don't believe me).

Another example:
You may also declare main() as void if it does not return a value.

Not at all. main returns int and only int.

One last example:
x = *p * (*p++);

This was his attempt to give a code snippet where the order of evaluation is specified. It's blatantly wrong: *p or may or may not be evaluated before p++.

There are many many other errors. This book is only useful as a reference if you are competent enough with C to not need it, in which case, why buy it?

Herb Schildt finds a wide audience among new C programmers, mostly due to his amicable writing style and clear, logical organization. While these qualities would be desirable for most books, they are what make "C: The Complete Reference" such a danger. Much of the information that Herb so eloquently gives is by and large tripe; many examples in this book demonstrate a lack of understanding of some of the most basic points of C. The result is an entertaining, rip-snorting read that leaves the reader dazzled, thirsty for more, but none the wiser (and thoroughly misinformed) in terms of the C programming language. This book is to be avoided at all costs, and is unfortunately typical of most modern C books.

Herbert Schildt is an enthusiastic writer who can seduce the naive reader into believing anything, no matter how ridiculous. Do yourself a favor and get a recent edition of _C: A Reference Manual_ by Samuel Harbison and Guy Steele instead. Also, _The C Programming Language_ by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie. (For the sake of the newbies out there, I should mention that Dennis Ritchie invented the C language, which in itself is a recommendation, not to mention that the first edition of the book, published in 1978, served as the base document for the ANSI C standard). These two books are recommended by the comp.lang.c Usenet newsgroup's FAQ list---a reading of which, incidentally, could have prevented Schildt from committing many of the horrible errors in _C: The Complete Reference_. The naive errors in this book would be embarassing even in a programming assignment turned in by a computer science college sophomore.

The reviewers who gave this book a 10 have been sadly duped and don't even know it. These people owe it to themselves to get the Harbison and Steele reference manual, and read the Usenet FAQ about the C language, and to read Peter Seebach's partial review of Schildt's book whose URL has been mentioned at least twice in some other reviews here. Also, anyone who doubts the negative reviews should write an article to comp.lang.c with the subject ``Schildt'' and a blank body. That alone should incite a frivolous anti-Schildt flame thread that will last a good two weeks.

The Usenet culture has even coined a new epithet which is applied to a horribly wrong assertion (about a programming language) which is nonchalantly presented as fact: that term is ``bullschildt''. This will no doubt end up in the jargon file one day, thus immortalizing Herb's family name. That just goes to show you that you should be careful about what you publish!

I give this book a 2 only because I believe that the ranking of 1 should be reserved for works like _Learn C in 21 Days_, _C For Dummies_ or others of t! he same trash bin calibre.

I never had C in school but had to pick it up to handle engineering subroutines. While painful apparently this book is the Bible of C programming. Using basically this book and tidbits I found on-line basically I learned C programming well enough to do my job. This book is one of "The Staples of C Programming".

The book looks very impressive but is not balanced. E.g. it devotes a lot of it's 800+ pages discussing arcane subjects (like the origin of the B programming language) and doesn't treat basic concepts fully or properly. I still can't get a print fcn to do a line feed and nowhere in Schmidt's book does it really even fully explain the print function.

Also he devotes 1/2 of a page to LOOPS: that's it! Basically you figure out what to do by compiling your programs hundreds of times.

Also there are really NO really detailed program examples for the concepts. You read about something and that's it. There are some code fragments but not enough to illustrate critical C concepts.

This is a reference book, and not a bad one. I would have given it 4 stars, but the quality of the binding is terrible.

I think a few pages fell out, the first time I opened this book. After some mild usage, I've just got a big ole pile of papers, with a bunch of missing pages.

I've been searching for a good C reference book, and this book is the best! It has it all, samples, good explainations. It doesnt confuse me like all the website tutorials.

This was a requirement for college. I have the kept the book after college though because I think it is good reference.

First of all, it shoud be said that the C language is so widely used it's a shame that good and updated books no longer appears on the market. This book is an exception. To my knowledge, it's the only book that covers the latest additions from the last ISO/IEC 9899:1999 standard.
This book covers (in addition to the traditional C89 standard):
1) restrict pointers.
2) the inline reserved word.
3) The new _Bool and bool types.
4) The new _Complex and _Imaginary reserved words.
5) The new "long long" integers for 64 bit integer arithmetic.
6) Variable lenght arrays.
7) Type qualifiers in array definitions.
8) Single line comments.
9) Mixed code / declaration style.
10) Variable arguments to macros.
11) The _Pragma operator.
12) Variable declaration inside for() cycles.
13) The new compound literals.
14) Flexible arrays inside struct members.
15) Delegate initializers.
16) Various additions and differences from the past standard.

and, most importantly, it always underline when a concept apply to C99 only, when it apply to C89 and when it is usable in both standards. It also underline when something get in contrast with the C++ programming language. The difference between the two standards will be always clear.
And, to my opinion, this is a *very good thing*.
What matters the most is: this book will teach you C. It's not an advanced book nor a beginner book. It's intermediate. So, if you're looking for an updated book about the C programming language and you have programmed something before, get this book now and leave complaints to others. If you're searching for a pedantic syntax/semantic analysis for the C language, just buy the specifications. The last section of the book is fantastic to gain confidence with the language. While not C related, it teaches you how to solve common problems by using C in practice:
a) Search and sorting.
b) Queues, stacks, linked lists and trees.
c) Sparse arrays with hash tables.
d) Syntax analysis and expression evaluation.
e) Some techniques used in artificial intelligence.

An additional section covers the implementation of a small C subset interpreter!!!

This book is not intended to be the most complete and advanced C book of the planet, but reading it surely it will contribute to your C knowledge and technical skills with it. Buy it without hesitation as a first book for this language. And don't skip more advanced books like "Expert C Programming" by Peter Van Der Linden, "C Traps and Pitfalls" by Andrew Koenig and "Memory as a Programming Concept" by Frantisek Franek.