Learn C the Hard Way - Open Tech Book

You Will Learn C!

Zed Shaw has crafted the perfect course for the beginning C programmer eager to advance their skills in any language. Follow it and you will learn the many skills early and junior programmers need to succeed–just like the hundreds of thousands of programmers Zed has taught to date! You bring discipline, commitment, persistence, and experience with any programming language; the author supplies everything else.

In Learn C the Hard Way, you’ll learn C by working through 52 brilliantly crafted exercises. Watch Zed Shaw’s teaching video and read the exercise. Type his code precisely. (No copying and pasting!) Fix your mistakes. Watch the programs run. As you do, you’ll learn what good, modern C programs look like; how to think more effectively about code; and how to find and fix mistakes far more efficiently. Most importantly, you’ll master rigorous defensive programming techniques, so you can use any language to create software that protects itself from malicious activity and defects.

Through practical projects you’ll apply what you learn to build confidence in your new skills. Shaw teaches the key skills you need to start writing excellent C software, including

Setting up a C environment
Basic syntax and idioms
Compilation, make files, and linkers
Operators, variables, and data types
Program control
Arrays and strings
Functions, pointers, and structs
Memory allocation
I/O and files
Libraries
Data structures, including linked lists, sort, and search
Stacks and queues
Debugging, defensive coding, and automated testing
Fixing stack overflows, illegal memory access, and more
Breaking and hacking your own C code

It’ll Be Hard at First. But Soon, You’ll Just Get It–And That Will Feel Great!

This tutorial will reward you for every minute you put into it. Soon, you’ll know one of the world’s most powerful programming languages. You’ll be a C programmer.

Title: Learn C the Hard Way
Subtitle: Practical Exercises on the Computational Subjects You Keep Avoiding (Like C)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Author(s): Zed A. Shaw
Published: 2015-08-10
Edition: 1
Format: eBook (pdf, epub, mobi)
Pages: 842
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9353065720
ISBN-13: 9789353065720
License: Read online for free
Book Homepage: Free eBook, Errata, Code, Solutions, etc.

About This eBook
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Acknowledgments
This Book Is Not Really about C
    The Undefined Behaviorists
    C Is a Pretty and Ugly Language
    What You Will Learn
    How to Read This Book
    The Videos
    The Core Competencies
        Reading and Writing
        Attention to Detail
        Spotting Differences
        Planning and Debugging
Exercise 0. The Setup
    Linux
    Mac OS X
    Windows
    Text Editor
        Do Not Use an IDE
Exercise 1. Dust Off That Compiler
    Breaking It Down
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 2. Using Makefiles to Build
    Using Make
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 3. Formatted Printing
    What You Should See
    External Research
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 4. Using a Debugger
    GDB Tricks
    GDB Quick Reference
    LLDB Quick Reference
Exercise 5. Memorizing C Operators
    How to Memorize
    The List of Operators
Exercise 6. Memorizing C Syntax
    The Keywords
    Syntax Structures
    A Word of Encouragement
    A Word of Warning
Exercise 7. Variables and Types
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 8. If, Else-If, Else
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 9. While-Loop and Boolean Expressions
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 10. Switch Statements
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 11. Arrays and Strings
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 12. Sizes and Arrays
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 13. For-Loops and Arrays of Strings
    What You Should See
    Understanding Arrays of Strings
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 14. Writing and Using Functions
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 15. Pointers, Dreaded Pointers
    What You Should See
    Explaining Pointers
    Practical Pointer Usage
    The Pointer Lexicon
    Pointers Aren’t Arrays
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 16. Structs And Pointers to Them
    What You Should See
    Explaining Structures
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 17. Heap and Stack Memory Allocation
    What You Should See
    Heap versus Stack Allocation
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 18. Pointers to Functions
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 19. Zed’s Awesome Debug Macros
    The C Error-Handling Problem
    The Debug Macros
    Using dbg.h
    What You Should See
    How the CPP Expands Macros
    Extra Credit
Exercise 20. Advanced Debugging Techniques
    Debug Printing versus GDB
    A Debugging Strategy
    Extra Credit
Exercise 21. Advanced Data Types and Flow Control
    Available Data Types
        Type Modifiers
        Type Qualifiers
        Type Conversion
        Type Sizes
    Available Operators
        Math Operators
        Data Operators
        Logic Operators
        Bit Operators
        Boolean Operators
        Assignment Operators
    Available Control Structures
    Extra Credit
Exercise 22. The Stack, Scope, and Globals
    ex22.h and ex22.c
    ex22_main.c
    What You Should See
    Scope, Stack, and Bugs
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 23. Meet Duff’s Device
    What You Should See
    Solving the Puzzle
        Why Bother?
    Extra Credit
Exercise 24. Input, Output, Files
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    The I/O Functions
    Extra Credit
Exercise 25. Variable Argument Functions
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 26. Project logfind
    The logfind Specification
Exercise 27. Creative and Defensive Programming
    The Creative Programmer Mind-Set
    The Defensive Programmer Mind-Set
    The Eight Defensive Programmer Strategies
    Applying the Eight Strategies
        Never Trust Input
        Prevent Errors
        Fail Early and Openly
        Document Assumptions
        Prevention over Documentation
        Automate Everything
        Simplify and Clarify
        Question Authority
    Order Is Not Important
    Extra Credit
Exercise 28. Intermediate Makefiles
    The Basic Project Structure
    Makefile
        The Header
        The Target Build
        The Unit Tests
        The Cleaner
        The Install
        The Checker
    What You Should See
    Extra Credit
Exercise 29. Libraries and Linking
    Dynamically Loading a Shared Library
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 30. Automated Testing
    Wiring Up the Test Framework
    Extra Credit
Exercise 31. Common Undefined Behavior
    UB 20
        Common UBs
Exercise 32. Double Linked Lists
    What Are Data Structures
    Making the Library
    Doubly Linked Lists
        Definition
        Implementation
    Tests
    What You Should See
    How to Improve It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 33. Linked List Algorithms
    Bubble and Merge Sorts
    The Unit Test
    The Implementation
    What You Should See
    How to Improve It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 34. Dynamic Array
    Advantages and Disadvantages
    How to Improve It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 35. Sorting and Searching
    Radix Sort and Binary Search
        C Unions
        The Implementation
        RadixMap_find and Binary Search
        RadixMap_sort and radix_sort
    How to Improve It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 36. Safer Strings
    Why C Strings Were a Horrible Idea
    Using bstrlib
    Learning the Library
Exercise 37. Hashmaps
    The Unit Test
    How to Improve It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 38. Hashmap Algorithms
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 39. String Algorithms
    What You Should See
    Analyzing the Results
    Extra Credit
Exercise 40. Binary Search Trees
    How to Improve It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 41. Project devpkg
    What Is devpkg?
        What We Want to Make
        The Design
        The Apache Portable Runtime
    Project Layout
        Other Dependencies
    The Makefile
    The Source Files
        The DB Functions
        The Shell Functions
        The Command Functions
        The devpkg Main Function
    The Final Challenge
Exercise 42. Stacks and Queues
    What You Should See
    How to Improve It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 43. A Simple Statistics Engine
    Rolling Standard Deviation and Mean
    Implementation
    How to Use It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 44. Ring Buffer
    The Unit Test
    What You Should See
    How to Improve It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 45. A Simple TCP/IP Client
    Augment the Makefile
    The netclient Code
    What You Should See
    How to Break It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 46. Ternary Search Tree
    Advantages and Disadvantages
    How to Improve It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 47. A Fast URL Router
    What You Should See
    How to Improve It
    Extra Credit
Exercise 48. A Simple Network Server
    The Specification
Exercise 49. A Statistics Server
    Specification
Exercise 50. Routing the Statistics
Exercise 51. Storing the Statistics
    The Specification
Exercise 52. Hacking and Improving Your Server
Next Steps
Index
Where are the Companion Content Files?
Code Snippets