On To C---Contents

The Table of Contents for On To C follows. Additional information about this book, along with access to software, is available via http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/phw/Books/

In this Table of Contents, you learn about what On To C contains in detail.

1 How this Book Teaches you the Language

Characteristics of C
Why you should learn C
Programming cliches
The organization of this book

2 How to Compile and Run a Simple Program

Compiling, linking, and executing
Statements and declarations
printf and print specifications
Case sensitivity and blank insensitivity
Operators and operands

3 How to Declare Variables

Data types and variable declarations
Initialization and assignment
Integral data types
Comments

4 How to Write Arithmetic Expressions

Precedence and association
Binary and unary operators
Type casting

5 How to Write Statements that Read Information from your Keyboard

scanf and read specifications
Input redirection

6 How to Define Simple Functions

Calling and returning from functions
Arguments, parameters, and values

7 How to Benefit from Procedure Abstraction

Making programs easier to reuse, read, and debug
Making programs easier to augment, improve, and change

8 How to Work with Local and Global Variables

Extent and scope
Local and global variables
Macro symbols

9 How to Perform Tests Using Numerical Predicates

Equal, ==, and not equal, !=
Greater than, >, and less than, <
Not, !

10 How to Write One-Way and Two-Way Conditional Statements

Boolean expressions
if and if else
Empty and compound statements
The conditional operator, ?:

11 How to Combine Boolean Expressions

And, &&, and or, ||
Evaluation order

12 How to Write Iteration Statements

while and for statements
Augmented assignment operators
Increment, ++, and decrement, --, operators
Side effects

13 How to Write Iterative Filters

while reading and for reading loops
Action of the read function at the end of a file

14 How to Write Recursive Functions

Functions that call themselves
The base part and the recursion part

15 How to Solve Definition Ordering Problems with Function Prototypes

The definition-before-call requirement
Declare now, define later

16 How to Create Structures and Objects

User-defined data types, structures, and objects
Structure declaration and structure variables
The structure-member operator

17 How to Work with Arrays Of Numbers

Arrays of numeric elements
Filling a numeric array from a file
Multidimensional arrays

18 How to Work with Arrays of Structure Objects

Arrays of structure-object elements
Filling an object array from a file

19 How to Use Pointer Parameters to Avoid Structure Copying

Why you should avoid structure copying
Pointers and pointer dereferencing
The address-of operator, &
The structure-pointer operator, ->

20 How to Use Pointer Parameters to Alter Values

Avoiding returned-value copying
Returning multiple values

21 How to Access Array Elements Using Pointers

Pointer arithmetic
Array names and constant pointers
Arrays and function parameters

22 How to Create New Structure Objects at Run Time

The free store
Allocating space with malloc
Pointer casting

23 How to Store Pointers to Structure Objects

Wasting space by defining too-large object arrays
Saving space by defining too-large pointer arrays

24 How to Define Constructor, Reader, and Writer Functions

25 How to Benefit from Data Abstraction

26 How to Write Multiway Conditional Statements

switch statements
exit statements

27 How to Use Enumerations to Improve Readability

The mnemonic sterility of numbers
The enumeration data type

28 How to Use Type Synonyms to Improve Readability

29 How to Use Unions to Capture Class Distinctions

30 How to Use Bits to Record State Information

Status registers and status bits
Setting and resetting
Bitwise and, &, and bitwise or, |
Masks and the shift operators, >> and <<

31 How to Write Functions that Return Character Strings

Character strings and character arrays
The null character, \O

32 How to Write Statements that Read Character Strings

Character arrays and input buffers
Using the read function with a character pointer

33 How to Deposit Character Strings into Structure Objects

Creating character arrays at run time using malloc
Using strlen and strcpy to measure and copy
The null pointer, NULL

34 How to Test String Characters

Characters viewed as integers
Obtaining character codes

35 How to Do Tabular Printing

Field width
Padding characters

36 How to Read From and Write to Files

File pointers
Opening and closing files
File reading and writing

37 How to Reclaim Memory

Garbage and memory leaks
Suspending program operation using sleep
free viewed as the complement of malloc

38 How to Tell Time

39 How to Access Command-Line Arguments

Arguments of main
File specifications and flags

40 How to Define Functions with a Variable Number of Arguments

41 How to Arrange for Conditional Compilation

Testing for macro definitions
Compile-time versus run-time conditionalization

42 How to Arrange Functions in a Multiple-File Program

Moving declarations into header files
Compiling to create object files
Linking to create executable programs
Managing global variables with static and extern

43 How to Arrange Global Variables in a Multiple-File Program

The static variable declaration
The extern variable declaration

44 How to Compile a Multiple-File Program

Recording file dependencies in a makefile
Maintaining systems using the make utility

Contents