C: The Complete Reference, 4th Ed. (Paperback)

~ (Author) "This book divides its description of the C language into two parts..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Overall, this is still one of my favorite C books. -- Scott McMahan, UNIXReview.com, July 10, 2000

Product Description

Another gem from Herb Schildt--best-selling programming author with more than 2.5 million books sold! C: The Complete Reference, Fourth Edition gives you full details on C99, the New ANSI/ISO Standard for C. You'll get in-depth coverage of the C language and function libraries as well as all the newest C features, including restricted pointers, inline functions, variable-length arrays, and complex math. This jam-packed resource includes hundreds of examples and sample applications.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 805 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 4 edition (April 26, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072121246
• ISBN-13: 978-0072121247
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.7 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #259,487 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Tutorial, NOT a Reference, March 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: C: The Complete Reference (Complete Reference Series) (Paperback)

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.

42 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Inaccurate, October 23, 2001

By A Customer

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?

22 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Buy a copy and destroy it, please!, May 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: C: The Complete Reference (Complete Reference Series) (Paperback)

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.