- Includes plenty of example code
- Covers Pointers in depth
- Wide range of algorithms covered
- Possibly too much Pure Maths
- Plenty of Examples
- Quite Detailed Look at the algorithms
- Full Source Code on accompanying CD-Rom.
This is an old book but not dated and probably not too expensive. Books about C tend not to date.
Published by O'Reilly in 1999, this is an excellent book for novice to seasoned C programmers aspiring to expert status. As both a reference and textbook this should be on your shelf. If you enjoy computer science books its the one for you.
The book moves straight into pointers, essential for any C programmer. Understanding pointer arithmetic, pointers to functions and casting types is as important as breathing. The topic of recursion is much less important- I've used it just once in anger in my career, but all toolboxes have tools just waiting for those rare occasions.
The Analysis of Algorithms section can help in optimizing your programs, but the insertion sort example is very practical. The book is littered with useful code fragments plus plenty of comments. its theory plus a lot of first year college maths.
Part 2 of the book deals with data structures; Linked Lists, Stacks, Sets, Hash tables, trees, Heaps and Graphs. Every C developer needs these. Perhaps there is just too much pure maths for my liking but as always there are plenty of code examples.
The last part of the book is on algorithms (Sorting, Numerical Methods, Data Compression, Graph and Geometric Algorithms) and goes well beyond what many other books do.
