Customer Reviews

The C Puzzle Book

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you really want to understand the ins and outs of the C programming language, work through the examples in this book. I first read the first edition back in the mid 80s and still remember the lessons - and make practical use of them today.

Really covers the traps of C syntax and how to use pointers properly. Highly recommended.

My old 1982 copy of The C Puzzle Book has always been my favorite C book. Without exception, it has proved useful many times over the years. Now, I have several more copies on order to put into our technical library at work and onto the desks of our more junior programmers.

This is a great book!

I recently purchased this book and I found it an excellent way to test knowledge of C programs. The book gives you some progreams and functions then asks you to follow the program and determine the output.
I do not know about other computer majors, but my the tests in my classes always include, what does the following function print out, or something to that effect, then you have to go through 2 or 3 loops to figure it out, which can be a bit tricky.
This book is exactly what you need if you are in that type of class, it will really help you with those questions and just generally increase your understanding of the C language.
Not to mention, it's really like a puzzle and not a test, so in that way it is more fun that frustrating.

I first encountered this book as a graduate student studying operating systems. The most successful OS of all time, Unix (and it's derivatives) was written in C, which evolved to that purpose. This book is like summer training camp for the C programmer. It exercises all of your skills in bizarre ways and leaves you exhausted, but honed, at the end of the day. I just bought the latest revision for my son who is headed off to college this fall.

This book is divided into sections that cover a portion of the C language. For instance, a section on bitwise operators looks something like:

a = 1, b = 2, c = 3;
PRINT(a & b | c);
PRINT(...);

On the following page is the output of each line. You compare your answers to discover if you were correct.

However, what makes this a 5-star book is that unlike most problem/answer books, half of this book thoroughly explains each problem. This allows you to teach yourself anything presented in this book.

I would recommend this to any C programmer, but mostly to students and instructors and tutors to accompany their curriculum.

Outside of writing a *LOT* of C-programs, this was the best way to quickly learn C. The derivations provided at the end of the book should enlighten everyone who wishes to learn C. If you manage to get a copy - keep it dearly !

I was disappointed when i was looking for this book for my son and found out it was out of print. This was the one book that helped me understand pointers, array pointers and structures when i was learning C. I have bought other books but they just did not have the interaction that the C Puzzle Book had. Please bring it back.

Thus far this book was one of the best book I have read on C programming. The book consists of a series of programs that you should analyze and then predict the output you should have on the screen. The book is short, really short, there is only about 24 pages worth of programs, another 24 for the output of the program, and the rest is the solutions to the programs. I liked the solutions of the programs because they were very thrall and the authors were not afraid to use pictures to explain the concepts; this was especially helpful for the pointers questions. The questions were somewhat basic, although I did learn a thing or two on how to analyze pointers and the precedence tables. Some of the coding found in the book is not in the proper style you would expect it, the author does say at the beginning of the text book such programs should be avoided. You will, however, encounter such bad styles in other programs you will read in the future. The book was a great read, it was challenging to say the least and it had something that other books lacked which is all the problems were explained and answered.

I truly wish I got a copy of this book earlier. It has explained a lot of strange quirks in C that I feel most people don't know about. What's amazing is that it's the smallest book on C I own and I learned more from this book then all the others. It's a great book for people doing C++, considering C is a subset of C++.

The contents are as people describe -- drills on the ins and outs
of C syntax and semantics. But my copy was of very poor quality.
The binding was uneven, and the pages looked like they were printed
on a copier instead of a printer. The page layout is unattractive.
I'm pretty surprised that Addison-Wesley were willing to put their
name on such a thing.