ABOUT THIS BOOK iii
If you have never programmed before, this book will be tough. Knowing some of
the following will help: Basic, C (historical versions), C++, Fortran, R, bash, JavaScript,
Java, MATLAB, Perl, Python, Scilab, and so on. But perhaps you have had some other
programming experience, maybe even without noticing. Many technical specifications
actually come in some sort of specialized language that can be helpful as an analogy: for
example, HTML for web pages and LaTeX for document formatting.
You should have an idea of the following concepts, although their precise meanings
may be a bit different in C than in the context where you learned them:
(1) Variables — Named entities that hold values
(2) Conditionals — Doing something (or not) subject to a precise condition
(3) Iteration — Doing something repeatedly for a specified number of times or until
a certain condition is met
Source code. Many of the programming code snippets that are presented in this book
are available for download as a .zip archive from the book’s website at https://gforge.
inria.fr/frs/download.php/latestfile/5298/code.zip. This allows you to view
them in context and to compile them and try them out. The archive also contains a
Makefile with a description of the components that are needed to compile these files.
It is centered around Linux or, more generally, POSIX systems, but it may also help you to
find out what you need when you are on a different system.
Exercises and challenges. Throughout this book, you’ll see exercises that are meant
to get you thinking about the concepts being discussed. These are probably best done
directly along with your reading. Then there is another category called “challenges.” These
are generally more demanding. You will need to do some research to even understand what
they are about, and the solutions will not come all by themselves: they will require effort.
They will take more time, sometimes hours or, depending on your degree of satisfaction
with your work, even days. The subjects covered in these challenges are the fruit of my
own personal bias toward “interesting questions” from my personal experience. If you
have other problems or projects in your studies or your work that cover the same ground,
they should do equally well. The important aspect is to train yourself by first searching for
help and ideas elsewhere, and then to get your hands dirty and get things done. You will
only learn to swim if you jump into the water.
Organization. This book is organized in levels, numbered from 0 to 3. The starting
level 0, named "Encounter," will summarize the very basics of programming with C. Its
principal role is to remind you of the main concepts we have mentioned and familiarize
you with the special vocabulary and viewpoints that C applies.
1
By the end of it, even if
you don’t have much experience in programming with C, you should be able to understand
the structure of simple C programs and start writing your own.
The "Acquaintance" level 1 details most principal concepts and features such as con-
trol structures, data types, operators, and functions. It should give you a deeper under-
standing of the things that are going on when you run your programs. This knowledge
should be sufficient for an introductory course in algorithms and other work at that level,
with the notable caveat that pointers are not yet fully introduced.
The "Cognition" level 2 goes to the heart of the C language. It fully explains point-
ers, familiarizes you with C’s memory model, and allows you to understand most of C’s
library interface. Completing this level should enable you to write C code professionally;
it therefore begins with an essential discussion about the writing and organization of C
programs. I personally would expect anybody who graduated from an engineering school
with a major related to computer science or programming in C to master this level. Don’t
be satisfied with less.
1
One of C’s special viewpoints is that indexing starts at 0, and not at 1 as in Fortran.
