Amazon.com: A Book on C: Programming in C (4th Edition. This third edition provides more programming examples and dissections than previous editions. It includes a complete chapter on C++ and an overall organization designed to appeal to the many programmers who view C as a stepping stone to C++ and the object-oriented paradigm.
This question attempts to collect a community-maintained list of quality books on the programming language, targeted at various skill levels. C is a complex programming language that is difficult to pick up on-the-go by reading online tutorials. A comprehensive book is often the best way to learn the language, and finding a good book is the first step.
It is important to avoid badly-written books, and even more importantly, books that contain serious technical errors. Please suggest edits to the accepted answer to add quality books, with an approximate skill level and a short blurb/description about each book. ( Note that the question is locked, so no new answers will be accepted. A single answer is being maintained with the list) Feel free to debate book choices, quality, headings, summaries, skill levels, and anything else you see that is wrong. Books that are deemed satisfactory by the C community here will stick around on the list; the rest will be regularly removed. For books that have reviews by the Association of C and C++ Users (ACCU), a link to those reviews should be added along with the book. See also: • Other C-related resources in the • A similar list for: This question was discussed on as part of the.
The consensus was to keep it undeleted and actively maintained. Warning This is a list of random books of diverse quality. In the view of some people (with some justification), it is no longer a list of recommended books. Some of the listed books contain blatantly incorrect statements or teach wrong/harmful practices. People who are aware of such books can edit this answer to help improve it. See, and also. Reference (All Levels) • - Brian W.
Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie (1988). Still a good, short but complete introduction to C (C90, not C99 or later versions), written by the inventor of C. However, the language has changed and good C style has developed in the last 25 years, and there are parts of the book that show its age. • - Samuel P. Harbison and Guy R. Steele (2002).
An excellent reference book on C, up to and including C99. It is not a tutorial, and probably unfit for beginners. It's great if you need to write a compiler for C, as the authors had to do when they started. • - Peter Prinz and Ulla Kirch-Prinz (2002). • - Steve Summit.
Web site with answers to many questions about C. • Various versions of the C language standards can be found.
There is an online version of the. • (Free PDF) - Derek M. Jones (2009). The 'new standard' referred to is the old C99 standard rather than C11.
Beginner • - Stephen Kochan (2014). A good general introduction and tutorial. • - Stephen Prata (2004) • - K. A good book for learning C.
• - Al Kelley/Ira Pohl (1998). Chertezhi metallicheskogo angara. • (Free Online) - Mike Banahan, Declan Brady, and Mark Doran (1991). • - Paul Deitel and Harvey M. Deitel (2015). Lots of good tips and best practices for beginners.
The index is very good and serves as a decent reference (just not fully comprehensive, and very shallow). • - David Griffiths and Dawn Griffiths (2012). • - Ivor Horton (2013). Very good explanation of pointers, using lots of small but complete programs. • - Bradley L.
Jones and Peter Aitken (2002). Very good introductory stuff. • - Richard Johnsonbaugh and Martin Kalin (1996). Intermediate • (Free PDF) - Axel-Tobias Schreiner (1993). The code gets a bit convoluted. If you want C++, use C++.