Best book on C gotchas and best practices?

[Chicken McNuggets]

I'm pretty up to speed with C but I still feel there are areas that I
make mistakes in my design and implementation. Would anyone recommend
the best book that deals with these kinds of issues? Obviously I already
have K&R, and the C11 standard document for reference but I was looking
for something a bit more focused on how to avoid common mistakes or
anti-patterns.

Any help is appreciated.
--
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have an appropriate newsgroups line in your header for your mail to be seen,
or the newsgroup name in square brackets in the subject line. Sorry.

[Eric Sosman]

On 7/30/2013 10:57 PM, Chicken McNuggets wrote:
> I'm pretty up to speed with C but I still feel there are areas that I
> make mistakes in my design and implementation. Would anyone recommend
> the best book that deals with these kinds of issues? Obviously I already
> have K&R, and the C11 standard document for reference but I was looking
> for something a bit more focused on how to avoid common mistakes or
> anti-patterns.

Andrew Koenig's "C Traps and Pitfalls" is worth a lukewarm
recommendation. "Lukewarm" for two reasons:

- First and more important, it's aimed at people making the
transition from pre-Standard to ANSI C, and is nowadays
rather dated.

- Second and less important, it goes out of its way to say
that the printf() specifier "%8%" is well-defined (even in
the original ANSI Standard it was a constraint violation).

--
Eric Sosman
eso...@comcast-dot-net.invalid

[ralph]

On Tue, 30 Jul 2013 21:57:04 -0500 (CDT), Chicken McNuggets
<chi...@mcnuggets.com> wrote:

>I'm pretty up to speed with C but I still feel there are areas that I
>make mistakes in my design and implementation. Would anyone recommend
>the best book that deals with these kinds of issues? Obviously I already
>have K&R, and the C11 standard document for reference but I was looking
>for something a bit more focused on how to avoid common mistakes or
>anti-patterns.
>

While not C specific, every begining programmer should add Steve
McConnell's "Code Complete" 2nd edition to their library.

http://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Construction/dp/0735619670

-ralph

[Chris Riesbeck]

On 7/30/2013 9:57 PM, Chicken McNuggets wrote:
> I'm pretty up to speed with C but I still feel there are areas that I
> make mistakes in my design and implementation. Would anyone recommend
> the best book that deals with these kinds of issues? Obviously I already
> have K&R, and the C11 standard document for reference but I was looking
> for something a bit more focused on how to avoid common mistakes or
> anti-patterns.
>
> Any help is appreciated.

Koenig C Traps and Pitfalls
van der Linden Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets

[Keith Thompson]

Eric Sosman <eso...@comcast-dot-net.invalid> writes:
> On 7/30/2013 10:57 PM, Chicken McNuggets wrote:
>> I'm pretty up to speed with C but I still feel there are areas that I
>> make mistakes in my design and implementation. Would anyone recommend
>> the best book that deals with these kinds of issues? Obviously I already
>> have K&R, and the C11 standard document for reference but I was looking
>> for something a bit more focused on how to avoid common mistakes or
>> anti-patterns.
>
> Andrew Koenig's "C Traps and Pitfalls" is worth a lukewarm
> recommendation. "Lukewarm" for two reasons:
>
> - First and more important, it's aimed at people making the
> transition from pre-Standard to ANSI C, and is nowadays
> rather dated.
>
> - Second and less important, it goes out of its way to say
> that the printf() specifier "%8%" is well-defined (even in
> the original ANSI Standard it was a constraint violation).

It's not a constraint violation. It's probably undefined behavior.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks...@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Working, but not speaking, for JetHead Development, Inc.
"We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this."
-- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

[Eric Sosman]

On 8/1/2013 1:57 PM, Keith Thompson wrote:
> Eric Sosman <eso...@comcast-dot-net.invalid> writes:
>> On 7/30/2013 10:57 PM, Chicken McNuggets wrote:
>>> I'm pretty up to speed with C but I still feel there are areas that I
>>> make mistakes in my design and implementation. Would anyone recommend
>>> the best book that deals with these kinds of issues? Obviously I already
>>> have K&R, and the C11 standard document for reference but I was looking
>>> for something a bit more focused on how to avoid common mistakes or
>>> anti-patterns.
>>
>> Andrew Koenig's "C Traps and Pitfalls" is worth a lukewarm
>> recommendation. "Lukewarm" for two reasons:
>>
>> - First and more important, it's aimed at people making the
>> transition from pre-Standard to ANSI C, and is nowadays
>> rather dated.
>>
>> - Second and less important, it goes out of its way to say
>> that the printf() specifier "%8%" is well-defined (even in
>> the original ANSI Standard it was a constraint violation).
>
> It's not a constraint violation. It's probably undefined behavior.

You're right: The "shall" is not in a constraints section,
so violating it yields undefined behavior. Sorry for the
misstatement, and thanks for the correction!

--
Eric Sosman
eso...@comcast-dot-net.invalid

[Fred J. Tydeman]

On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 02:57:04 UTC, Chicken McNuggets <chi...@mcnuggets.com> wrote:

> I'm pretty up to speed with C but I still feel there are areas that I
> make mistakes in my design and implementation. Would anyone recommend
> the best book that deals with these kinds of issues?

Perhaps:
Portability and the C Language by Rex Jaeschke
---
Fred J. Tydeman Tydeman Consulting
tyd...@tybor.com Testing, numerics, programming
+1 (775) 287-5904 Vice-chair of PL22.11 (ANSI "C")
Sample C99+FPCE tests: http://www.tybor.com
Savers sleep well, investors eat well, spenders work forever.