We have had a love/hate relationship with C for years. We love the ease with which one can write C programs. We love the development environments that come with many of today's C compilers. But we hate the ease with which one can make mistakes. We hate the attention to details that C programming often requires. And above all, we hate the way many C programmers disparage other languages. Let`s face it: C is not the ultimate programming language (no other language either). It is, however, a language with which every software developer should become familiar. It has become, for better or for worse, the lingua franca of the computer world. The present book is an attempt to bring this lingua franca closer to would be computer professionals.

This book "'C' Programming - A Practical Perspective" is designed as a primary text for a C course. Previous programming experience in a high-level language is helpful, but not necessary for a computer-literate reader. Since the book is self-contained and usable for reference as well as learning, it makes an excellent companion text for a course in data structures, compiler design, operating systems, computer graphics, or other courses that use C as programming language. Due to its ample collection of programs, exercises and emphasis on practical problems, the book will also appeal to readers who are learning C on their own.

The Topics Covered in the Book :
- Algorithms, Flow-chart, A Brief History of C, C Tokens, Keywords, Variables, Storage Class, Data Types,
- Operators, Precedence, Associativity, Expressions, Implicit Type Conversion, Explicit Conversion,
- Control Statements, Simple Statements, Compound Statements, Loops, Preprocessor, Preprocessor Directives, Macros, String Input and Output, Specifiers,
- Functions, Types of Functions, Function Calling Mechanism, Recursion, Arrays,Multi-dimensional Arrays, Pointers, Address Operator, Pointer Expressions,
- Pointer Arithmetic, Pointers and Functions, Dynamic Memory Allocation, Structures, Unions
- File Management, File I/O, Command Line Parameters

Contents :

1. Algorithms and Flowcharts
2. Introduction to C
3. Tokens and Data Types
4. Operators and Expressions
5. Control Statements
6. Preprocessor
7. Input and Output
8. Functions
9. Arrays
10. Pointers
11. Structures and Unions
12. File Management

Appendix
Appendix - I : A Complete List of ASCII Symbols
Appendix - II : A Complete List of C Keywords and Operators
Appendix - III : A Header-filewise Listing of all Functions in the C Library