Understanding and Using C Pointers: Core Techniques for Memory Management 1st Edition

by Richard M Reese (Author)

152 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-1449344184

ISBN-10: 1449344186

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Improve your programming through a solid understanding of C pointers and memory management. With this practical book, you’ll learn how pointers provide the mechanism to dynamically manipulate memory, enhance support for data structures, and enable access to hardware. Author Richard Reese shows you how to use pointers with arrays, strings, structures, and functions, using memory models throughout the book.

Difficult to master, pointers provide C with much flexibility and power—yet few resources are dedicated to this data type. This comprehensive book has the information you need, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced C or C++ programmer or developer.

Get an introduction to pointers, including the declaration of different pointer types
Learn about dynamic memory allocation, de-allocation, and alternative memory management techniques
Use techniques for passing or returning data to and from functions
Understand the fundamental aspects of arrays as they relate to pointers
Explore the basics of strings and how pointers are used to support them
Examine why pointers can be the source of security problems, such as buffer overflow
Learn several pointer techniques, such as the use of opaque pointers, bounded pointers and, the restrict keyword

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Editorial Reviews

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Q&A with Richard Reese, author of "Understanding and Using C Pointers"

Q. Why is your book timely?

A. The C language continues to be a popular and widely used language. In addition, there are millions of lines of C code being maintained. Pointers are central to C and a solid understanding of them is important in crafting reliable and secure software. Understanding C pointers has always been important but they have not always been adequately covered. Their widespread usage in new and old applications begs a complete and comprehensive coverage.

Q. What do you hope that readers of your book will walk away with?

A. I hope that the experienced developer will be able to fill any holes in their understanding of C pointers. I hope that the less experienced developers will become more proficient and confident in their application of pointers.

Q. Can you give us a few tips on using pointers?

Be careful when using pointers to void. If you cast a pointer to a pointer to void there is nothing preventing you from casting it to a different pointer type.
When using function pointers the programmer must be careful to ensure it is used properly because C does not check to see if the correct parameters are passed.
New code development should use the restrict keyword with most pointer declarations. This will enable better code optimization. Modifying existing code may not be worth the effort.
Compilers do not always do a good job at reporting alias-related warnings. They can sometimes miss aliases and may sometimes report alias problems where they don't exist. It is ultimately up to the programmer to identify alias conditions.
Remember NULL and NUL are different. NULL is used as a special pointer and is typically defined as ((void*)0). NUL is a char and is defined as '\0'. They should not be used interchangeably.
Improperly aligned pointers can result in an abnormal program termination or retrieval of bad data. In addition, slower pointer access is possible if the compiler is required to generate additional machine code to compensate for the improper alignment.

About the Author

Richard Reese has worked in the industry and academics for the past 29 years. For 10 years he provided software development support at Lockheed and at one point developed a C based network application. He was a contract instructor providing software training to industry for 5 years. Richard is currently an Associate Professor at Tarleton State University in Stephenville Texas.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (May 28, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 226 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1449344186
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1449344184
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.48 x 9.19 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #174,348 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #9 in Memory Management Algorithms
- #34 in C Programming Language
- #40 in Microsoft C & C++ Windows Programming

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152 ratings

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Allan Wind

Excellent but I didn't learn anything new

Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2020

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The book is excellent, to the point, and covers pointers well. I didn't think it gave much justice to "Core Techniques for Memory Management". Things like let caller allocate memory so it's responsible for deallocation and to ensure malloc/free happens as the same level. If only the called function knows how much memory to allocate, add a feature so it can tell the caller how much memory that is (example sprintf). If caller knows the maximum size, then it might be fine to allocated too much memory, possible realloc later. Region based memory strategies. The c extensions of gcc, for instance, that allows you to associate cleanup attributes to a variable when it goes out of scope.

2 people found this helpful

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Darrell R

The C book I wish I had when I was an undergrad!

Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2021

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I always had a bit of "brain cramp" when dealing with C pointers. This book taught me the trick of reading variable declarations from right to left. For example:

int *pi; // means "pi is a pointer to an int"

It clearly explains the use of the dereference operator in an lvalue:

*pi = 5 // The int 5 is assigned to memory location where pi points.

But it pointed out that this (very similar to the above) is a common error:

int *pi = 5; // We are declaring a pointer to an int, and then trying to assign the integer 5 to the pointer, not the integer memory location.

And that's all just in chapter 1! He helpfully diagrams memory after each use of pointers, making the difference between the stack, heap and the data segment (static memory) clear. There are detailed chapters on pointer use with dynamic memory, functions, arrays, strings, and structures.

It's nice to have an entire book focused entirely on pointers. The focused drill is clearing up confusion that plagued me for longer than I care to admit. Thank you!

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gwilliams

After Dennis Ritchies original "C" book....This is the most Important Book on "C" I've read.

Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2018

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The only way to describe this book is "tremendous" !!! It is the best/most useful book about "C" I have read. Even though the scope of the book is studying "pointers", it covers it from A-Z very well. It is an area of "C" that is really needed. What it conveys and teaches is very necessary. It is a book that is necessary for all "C" programmers, engineers and students. It is very useful for anyone that writes "C" programs to have read and understood. Even if you just read and learn the sections you think are important, it is very useful. I would say that every "C" programmer should read and understand most of the book. This book was a great surprise for me, it invigorated me to learn more about the language. I would hope that all engineers and programmers would read and use the rules outlined in this book. Which would help them enjoy the power of "C" more often.
A really happy Michael Stolzle,

4 people found this helpful

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moneer

If you are curious about memory management this defintly a book you wanna check out.

Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2019

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This is probably the best programming book I've ever read. I've had prior experince in programming from JavaScript, and C# and just started in C. I had a problem with pointers, and that's why I got this book, and got so much from it. He does a pretty good job talking about a complicating subject in simple terms, and if you are paitent you'll find that he later defines earlier terms that you maybe not be fimilar with. If you are curious about memory management this defintly a book you wanna check out.

3 people found this helpful

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Rapid Logic

Must-read for every computer science student

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2013

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This is the best coverage of C pointers and memory management I have seen. Every computer science student should master this material and would benefit from doing so during the first course on C/C++ and before the systems programming courses.

All too common with math and theoretical CS authors, many or most of whom are professional educators, is the attitude that brevity is beauty. Whether they are interested in instilling their ideas in the reader is not evident from their writing. Reese provides the right level of detail and a coherent exposition which develops a solid intuition without having to re-read his explanations.

The conceptual diagrams are helpful but a little ambiguous in referencing which rectangle is the function stack, which is main, and which is the heap. I hope the author improves the diagrams in his next edition. I do not deduct any stars because this book is much better than anything else, and it covers essential CS material.

8 people found this helpful

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Michael Gautier

Practical, Example Driven Discussion of Pointers

Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2013

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A great source of basic knowledge in the use of pointers. The topic is not approached from a theoretical view point. The material is defined by end-to-end code examples that are explained. Background information is given but the author does not spend a lot of time on history or highly formal description of concepts. Memory management using pointers is discussed in the context of real-world usage. That does not mean you are shown a real-world system, but code examples of the kind that illustrate the use of pointers in a realistic way. The book is shorter as a result and more focused which means it will be trivial to use as a direct reference on such matters.

2 people found this helpful

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BassMan

Great coverage of a confusing topic

Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2020

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I really enjoyed this book and found it to do a great job of explaining pointers and memory use. Highly recommended if you're learning C.

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Artyom Yakovenko

Must read for any C programmer

Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2019

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This is a very thorough and accessible explanation of pointers in C, as well as other aspects of working with memory overall. Would totally recommend it particularly to anybody struggling with the topic. I personally had not had difficulties understanding pointers even before reading the book, but still found it to be a very nice refresher. Well worth the time and money, I do think it made me a better programmer.

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Max

Helped a 2nd Year Comp Sci

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 18, 2019

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It does what it says on the time. Thought I better leave a *ptr to that. It does &address all the bases.

2 people found this helpful

Barry Moss

Well written and very useful

Reviewed in Canada on March 2, 2019

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My background is an FPGA engineer who occasionally needs to do a bit of C programming. Recently I got pulled into a major project with a lot of C programming and I found myself out my depth. This book helped bridge the gap between the C primer level of books and the type of pointer constructs being used regularly by C programming professionals. The book is well written and illustrated with sufficient examples to demonstrate all the concepts.

Anonymous

Great Book On Pointers Even in 2018

Reviewed in India on December 29, 2018

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Great Book , I am thankful to the author. Very well written, only drawback is that it doesn't contain any practice. Reader has to work through to get the concepts, which makes the book difficult, but hey who is saying pointers is easy. Its not, hence we as reader we have to work hard. Great book and must read !!!

3 people found this helpful

fradsham

Excellet book on C pointers

Reviewed in Canada on June 28, 2016

Verified Purchase

I have been a C# programmer for many years and I have been away from C since school. So the & and * of pointers scared me a little until I found this book. It explained it in very simple terms with good examples, even addressing security vulnerabilities that could be introduced with pointers.

It skips all the other stuff covered by intro books and focuses on the real advantage of using C over other languages (i.e. pointers). I would recommend this book for new programmers or just as a refresher to others (as in my case).

Amazon Customer

Simple, precise.

Reviewed in India on December 31, 2018

Verified Purchase

if you want to learn the pointers I would recommend this book for you. The book clearly and briefly explains the working of pointers and how they been used in various data structures.

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Understanding and Using C Pointers: Core Techniques for Memory Management 1st Edition

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Q&A with Richard Reese, author of "Understanding and Using C Pointers"

About the Author

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