This book was written with two groups of readers in mind. Whether you are new to C and want to learn it, or already know the older version of the language but want to find out more about the new standard, we hope that you will find what follows both instructive and at times entertaining too.
This is not a tutorial introduction to programming. The book is designed for programmers who already have some experience of using a modern high-level procedural programming language. As we explain later, C isn't really appropriate for complete beginners—though many have managed to use it—so the book will assume that its readers have already done battle with the notions of statements, variables, conditional execution, arrays, procedures (or subroutines) and so on. Instead of wasting your time by plowing through tedious descriptions of how to add two numbers together and explaining that the symbol for multiplication is *, the book concentrates on the things that are special to C. In particular, it's the way that C is used which is emphasized.
Those who already know C will be interested in the new Standard and how it affects existing C programs. The effect on existing programs might not at first seem to be important to newcomers, but in fact the ‘old’ and new versions of the language are an issue for the beginner too. For some years after the approval of the Standard, programmers will have to live in a world where they can easily encounter a mixture of both the new and the old language, depending on the age of the programs that they are working with. For that reason, the book highlights where the old and new features differ significantly. Some of the old features are no ornament to the language and are well worth avoiding; the Standard goes so far as to consider them obsolescent and recommends that they should not be used. For that reason, they are not described in detail, but only far enough to allow a reader to understand what they mean. Anybody who intends to write programs using these old-style features should be reading a different book.
This is the second edition of the book, which has been revised to refer to the final, approved version of the Standard. The first edition of the book was based on a draft of the Standard which did contain some differences from the draft that was eventually approved. During the revision, we have taken the opportunity to include more summary material and an extra chapter illustrating the use of C and the Standard Library to solve a number of small problems.
