Crash Course in C

Last year's version of the crash course was encoded by the Classroom 2000 system. You can view the presentations, provided your have a non-dinosaur-age web browser and the (free) RealPlayer.

Go to crash course.

Additional information, particularly useful for novice UNIX users, is available here.

Part I: Thursday, November 18, 18:00-19:30

topics covered:
variables and statements, control, functions, arrays and strings
- PowerPoint version
- PostScript version

Part II: Wednesday, November 24, 16:30-18:00

topics covered:
types, pointers, arrays, structures
- PowerPoint version
- PostScript version

Part III, Thursday, November 25, 18:00-19:30

topics covered:
structures, use of linked lists, separate compilation, Makefiles, and debugging (using gdb on UNIX). The linklist.c example program presented in the gdb section can be found on the ECE machines in ~jer/linklist.c. Try copying it to your directory, compiling and debugging it as outlined in the slides. A little extra information on Makefiles is available here. For further background, see man make.
- PowerPoint version
- PostScript version

C Programming References

The definitive reference on C (a must for any C programmer) is:

Kernighan, B. and Ritchie, D.: The C Programming Language, 2nd ed., Prentice-Hall, 1988.

Other useful references are:

Schildt, H.: C: The Complete Reference, McGraw-Hill, 1991
Waite, M., Prata, S.: The Waite Group's New C Primer, Sams, 1990.

On-line C programming courses:

C programming: by Steve Summit.
C programming: by Steve Holmes.

Don't forget that your question is likely to have been asked already: check out the list of Frequently Asked Questions in comp.lang.c maintained by Steve Summit, as well as the list of Infrequently Asked Questions in comp.lang.c by Peter Seebach.

A large repository of useful web pointers regarding C is kept at the University of Linköping, Sweden.

C++ Programming References

Given its downword compatibility with C, C++ is a viable option for any Unix system programming problem.

The definitive reference about it (complete and comprehensive it is, readable and simple it is not) is:

Stroustrup, B: The C++ Programming Language, 2nd ed., Addison-Wesley, 1991.

An on-line tutorial is available here.