This book is extremely well written but it moves very fast. It is a short read so in order to get the most out of it you'll need to read then re-read much of it. Also, actually doing the examples and excercises will get you that much closer to knowing the C language intimately.

I know that this book was written a long time ago and the fact that it still holds up is pretty amazing. It is somewhat dated in terms of the typography and layout in fact it's not the easiest book to read visually.

If you are brand new to programming you'll definately want to start out with a different book. This book is not a friendly intro to programming but more of an expert essay on the C language.

Two things that really bother me: This book has some Unix based exercises toward the end so you'll need to get a copy of Cygwin (a unix environment that runs on Windows) if you are running a Windows based operating system to complete the excercizes. The next thing which bothers me even more is there is almost little to no material on dynamic memory. It skims over the use of keywords like "malloc" and some of the examples which use dynamic memory don't handle memory cleanup at all. In fact there's almost no mention of cleaning up after yourself after you've requested memory using "malloc" I find this disturbing because to be effective at dynamic memory management which is a foundational concept in C you have to understand how important it is to be responsible about requesting memory from the OS and then "free"ing it once you are done with it. Again, the material on this subject is very thin.

But, aside from that...if you are a C programmer it's almost a given that you own this book.

Trivia: Ever wondered where the "Hello World" statement came from? This book is it! ;)

This is the book to have on the C language. A great reference and a great read. This book has been very influential in the field of technical books, often imitated. I recommend it to beginners to advanced programmers.

This is THE definitive C language reference.

I wouldn't want to try to learn to program in C from it unless I were already an experience programmer, and it isn't that useful for Windows programming, but this is the book that every experienced Unix C programmer has open on their desk.

The "K & R", as it is widely known has a reputation of both being the pure encapsulation of and a terse discourse in the C Language. Both characterizations have equal merit. That being said, this shockingly succinct (at only 272 pages) publication is both tutorial and reference. In short, more of the "madness behind the method" is covered in this tome than the unwieldy but for some reason mandated college texts from the likes of Deitel or from the more cursory "Dummies" efforts. From the onset, the authors waste no time jumping into each concept with solid code examples. At first these may seem a little complex and in actuality they are--many of the standard library functions are stepped through to drive across such concepts. The authors preface with "C is not a big language", and that is true, however when one considers how the "B-52" of programming languages has been the linguistic basis for the more popular Java, C# and C++ (not to mention what for Ruby, Perl and Python are implemented in) the essence of this work by the authors of the language cannot be overstated. This is written with the student of the programming art in mind, whether at the collegiate or professional level. This should be a required introduction for Comp Sci or Engineering majors to that art, and every serious programming student or practitioner should own it. Given that it still holds its original value, chances are most do. Don't let the price fool you--The C Programming Language is worth its weight in gold!

Everyone goes on about K&R ... God's of C etc. etc. Yes, they may have invented the language but you would think otherwise from reading this book.

I programmed C for an embedded system for years and often sought answers about the very lowest level, nitty-gritty details of C. For a while I turned to this book, but soon learnt from experience that I could ALWAYS find the answer, or a better answer, in "C: A Reference Manual".

This book was published in 1988 and is showing its age. It has not been updated with the latest ANSI/ISO standardizations. It is also very dated in it's layout, typography, approach etc.

Summary: If you want the definitive C reference book, buy "C: A Reference Manual". It's not 1988 anymore - move on people!! Skip this book.

The Best book to start with. This was my first C Book. I still treasure it. One of the classics still floating around.

This little book is still a standard reference after all these years. Having gone from programming in C to C++, Ada, Java, and a handful of others, I still find myself referring back to this little reference for a key concept that is as true today as then. More than a tutorial on the C language, this is a compact desk reference to computer science with real examples of elegant code from a real operating system. Leave it to masters of efficiency in software design to come up with a marked efficiency in textbook design as well. Never have so few packed so much into so little space. The language has changed, the underlying principles of software design have not.

I have a few years of PHP, Python and JavaScript experience. I don't have a computer science degree. I picked up this tiny 180 page book and learned C in a few weeks. I did a lot of the exercises, which at first were incredibly challenging, but then once things click, you'll see the solutions aren't impossible. I feel that I've learned enough C to write a pretty decent program. Things like gcc and linking and using shared libraries aren't covered, and the standard headers have been updated since this book I think. Some online reading, or an additional book will be required in addition to this.

This review is in no way a reflection of the service which I have received from Amazon, which to date has been stellar!!! Great Job guys at Amazon!!!

About the Book:
I am a Physics Graduate and currently persuing my Masters in computer science. I bought this because I was in the process of learning C and wanted to understand the intricacies of the language from the perspectives of its creators. Well, to no avail.

This book is not for a beginner of the language, and if you are a beginner ignore the excercises until you have read the whole book, or simply buy
"The C Answer Book", which is the one they probably really want us to buy.

For ambitious programmers the book will be a good challenge. If you get through all the questions you should be able to create a simple compiler at the end of the book.

Things that could be improved:
1. Better explanations on how the language works with hardware
2. Better demonstrations on how each command/ reserved word can be used, especially the rand() function generator.

I have also started reading one of Ivor Horton's books on C++, he is a fantastic teacher. I think if you are a beginner of any language, or simply want to know how a language really works check out any of his texts.

The other comments capture the importance of this book, so I won't dwell on it. The main point I would like to make is that this book is accessible to somebody who has no programming experience at all, as this was my first book for my first programming language over 27 years ago in my high school. We had a pdp11/70 running UNIX and all I knew at the time was how to do basic UNIX commands (ls, cp, rm, and then cc, of course), and how to drive a text editor, a variant of Emacs.

The rest is up to you. You need to have a passion and it will help a great deal to have a mentor or a teacher who can answer all your questions. I knew I had the passion when I couldn't sleep at night.

One last thing: Programmers who learn C and really understand it, pointers, and "how strcmp actually works" will be good programmers in higher level languages like Java, Ruby or anything else that comes along. If you start out with the higher level languages and never learn what is really going on at the machine level (which is where C is at), you will write inefficient code and have no idea why. The world is full of programmers like that today. Try not to be one of them.

This book is a great book for learning C programming. It can be somewhat difficult, but when you are done, you will have a very solid understanding of C programming.

C is easily the most important programming language. Windows, Linux, etc, are written in C. Most computer languages are written in C. There's a reason for this: speed and control of computer resources. The virtue of speed is self-evident. The virtue of proper stack, cache, memory, and I/O management is just as significant. Learning to program in C teaches you to respect and get the most from the computer's hardware. This is especially true if you program in other languages. C also teaches coding discipline.

This book is not an easy read. It's a rewarding read. It does not code for you; it does not hold your hand. (As in anything else in life, hand-holding retards your development.) To become good at coding, you need to practice a lot. You need to fail a lot. You need to climb over your frustrations and plug away until you "get" it. C won't give you instant gratification like PHP, Perl, Ruby, et al. Instant gratification is overrated, especially when it comes to computer programming. Haste so often makes waste.

I do not claim that learning C is mandatory for being a good programmer in another language. I will claim, however, that if you're solid in your C skills, then you will be a good programmer with a very marketable skill that will differentiate you from the masses who have no clue about things like spatial locality or two's complement, etc.

If you have a true desire to become a superior programmer in any language, buy and read this book.

I've been writing professional C code for over 3 years and coding in C for much longer and I think this is a must have for all C programmers. Love the writing style... love the mode of teaching... everything.

Seeing as this is written by the guy who invented C, you cant go wrong when it comes to accuracy and information here. Overall, the book sets a good pace, and explains all the concepts quite well. However, there are some leaps in logic, and having the help of a somewhat "easier" book will help readers without a background in science/logic/math/whatever. Something along the lines of the "for Dummies" books would be an example. Even so, the chapters make sense, and everything is explained well, but good luck doing the sample problems based upon what you learned in the chapters without the aid of a secondary source.

This is an intensive bible to C. It includes not only as a reference, but a tutorial. It was made almost 30 years ago, but it is still invaluable to today's programmers. It is an absolute must for any C or C++ programmer.

As somebody else said, this book is NOT for a programming beginner - its style of writing is quite terse with few or no actual illustrations (via drawings of flow-charts {or equivalent}, programming-structure, etc.) versus a lot of text to read through. To make matters worse, C (and its derivatives like C++, C#, etc.) is a very LEAN (and truly MEAN!!) programming language 'per se' - with relatively few prewritten macros, subroutines and functions, one can get frustrated very quickly! [Furthermore, C and its derivative compilers don't attempt any error-recovery of faulty compiles - the tiniest error can therefore upset matters in spite of a fundamentally worthy algorithm!]

Those who've already had previous programming experience will love this book (especially if they like 're-inventing the wheel', which lean & mean programming entails); others would do better to invest either in another book, another computer-language (my favourites in spite of their being hard to get to - especially the former! - are PL/I and Ada) and ideally both!

Anyone who programs in C needs to have this book in their library. The tutorial section is absolutely wonderful, not to mention all of the reference material. The book is quite thin, but it is also very concise making it incredibly valuable to any C programmer.

This book is the gold standard for C programming. I have found it to be useful for both standard PC programs and embedded programming. It does not cover GUI design or other platform-specific items, but if you just want to write a parser or scientific analysis program, this has exactly the information you will need.

Some people refer to this as the "c" bible
This book is not cluttered with C++ forcing you to figure out what part is "c".

You may think that this book is not for beginners. However it is actually more of a combination of dictionary and ["The Elements of Style" ISBN: 020530902X] for the "c" language

This does of course include ANSI c, which is transportable to all platforms. It also states that," Since the ANSI c library is in many cases modeled on Unix facilities, this could may help your understanding of the library as well."

This book should be used as a prerequisite to c communications books.

I think the reviews and high marks are very fitting for this book, for what it is intended to be as noted in the prefaces -- "This book is meant to help the reader learn how to program in C." "The book is not an introductory programming manual; it assumes some familiarity with basic programming concepts like variables, assignment statements, loops, and functions. Nonetheless, a novice programmer should be able to read along and pick up the language, although access to a more knowledgeable colleague will help."

The book is pretty concise, and packs a lot information and examples into the book that are excellent. Even though it is concise, it still does a pretty good job in explaining C and it's constructs. I was especially pleased in the second edition because they expounded a bit more to reach further down to the more inexperienced programmer, like me, to lend a hand. The examples are very good and they all actually work. What also is nice about the examples is that they are very useful in the real world, and pretty much complete, not just snippets -- this book will never really outgrow it's usefullness to you. Additionally, the assignments do a nice job in reenforcing what you have learned and allow you to put into practice the concepts, and even stretch your abilities a bit more.

So in summary, this book is excellent for the general audience of programmers who want to learn C, and also appropriate for the more inexperienced programmer, and also for the newbie with no programming if s/he is technically inclined, although for the newbie I would probably recommend instead the "C primer plus". I find myself borrowing someone's "C primer plus" after I've thought long about, experimented, but was still unclear on some issue that I just didn't quite get from this book. However, if I could only have one C book, this would be it.

Though this book might not be for the absolute beginners in programming, it gives a great insight in C (and C++ sometimes) both for the newbie as well as the pro programmer. You can use it a introduction to C programming or just as a reference. Would be a shame not to have this gem on your shelves in your home and/or office.

I read and heard all the hype about this book and I had to check it out. I ordered the book and started reading the first few pages and even got the famous "hello, world!" to print on my screen! After that, the whole terminologies and technical aspect of programming in C went right over my head. I put the book aside.

I purchased another book called Absolute Beginner's Guide to C by Greg Perry which really was simple and easy to understanding C. I then went back to this Kernighan/Ritchie book and it started to make a little more sense. Again, however, as I started to read more of this book things are still too technical and goes right over my head. Hopefully one day I'll be able to pick up this book and REALLY understand it.

If the original syntax of C was both pith and precise, then the spirit of the text follows the spirit of the language perfectly. It is remarkably short, provides a clear sense of not only how to program well and how to structure large tasks intelligently but also a very intelligent presentation of how the computer executes the generated code and what is actually going on under the hood. This last aspect is sufficiently lost in 4G languages and elaborate frameworks and tools that the critical art of debugging has become a crass exertise and "tweak and test" that lacks a deep appreciation for why some things weren't a good idea to start with.

No mater what language you program in, please read K&R. It will be one of the few programming books you will still own ten years later (my current copy was bought in 1981).

Don't be put off by the price of this book. A must read for anyone involved in computer programming.

In computer programmming, this is the New Testament (ISO C), the first edition being the Old Testament (K&R C).

No need to repeat its praise and its glory in numerous reviews below, except for one of its primary virtue: conciseness. It reveals the Truth in as many words as necessay, but no more. I repeat this because I see that the current printing uses crude thick papers to double up the bulk, an act of heresy to the virtue aforementioned. My copies from 90's are only half as thick.

This is a cynical response by the publisher to the complaints of the ignorant that presumes the price must be in proportion to the volume. Our ignorance and the publisher's greed has resulted in defacement of the scripture.

Let us all repent.

This is quite possibly the best book for C ever written, the classic Kernighan and Ritchie text. I consider it to be the foundational book for C programming. This is the foundation upon which an understanding and working knowledge of C can be built. Even if you never read it, which would be a tragedy, having this text in your library brings significant bragging rights.

This book helped me learn basic C for a college course in just a few weeks. Highly reccommended.

I bought this as my first C programming book a few years ago. If I would have written a review back then, I would have given this book 3 stars. It assumes that the reader has some programming knowledge as well as a fundamental understanding of how computers work.
After reading another C programming book and following up with this one, I have a much better understanding of C programming practices and exactly what is going on, how certain syntax is more hardware-friendly than others, etc.
I would recommend reading Stephen Kochan's "Programming in C" and following up with K&R's book. Make sure to try some of the examples, the best way to learn is by practicing.

I've used several programming books to teach me languages. First it was the "Learning Perl" and "Programming Perl" books from O'Reilly. Then we had "C++: How to Program", from Deitel and Deitel. But none of those can come close to this book.

K&R manages to teach an entire programming language in but a few lessons. As they say, C is a small language: it doesn't need a 1000 page book! Short, easy-to-understand, and right to the point, this books teaches the syntax of C, the usage of C, common paradigms of C, and so on. Possibly confusing practices ( while((int c = getchar()) != EOF) ) are well-explained, and you come away with a fantastic foundation of this language.

The exercise are fantastic, and some are quite difficult, forcing you to think and apply yourself. My one complaint is that solutions are not provided, but these are easily found online.

Even once you've read this book, it can be a fantastic reference. There are tomes out there dedicated to C reference, those may be better for, say, writing a kernel. But for most people, this book works fantastically.

I cannot recommend this book enough for learning C.

Long ago this book was required in one of my undergraduate classes. At that time, I really could not find it easy therefore put it aside and used other books for the class. It seemed hard at that point. Many years later I bought and used the C Primer Plus book of Stephen Prata which is an excellent book for beginning C. Later, I picked up this book from my library and looked at it, it seemed rather understandable and very good. I think this book is very good but beginner might find it hard to follow. I suggest you start with other books (I suggest C Primer Plus) and then come to this. It will be very beneficial that way.

A great book about C with very interesting examples. It is for experienced programmmers. If you're one of them, go for it. The only bad thing is its price.. but the rest, almost perfect.

For learning C programming, this book is the gold standard. It is unpretentious and to the point, assuming that you have the general concept of what it means to program a computer and want to learn the C language. It is gentle, but not touchy-feely, and guides you through what you need to know.

Personally, I think "The UNIX Programming Environment" by Kernighan and Pike is an excellent companion to this book (assuming you have a Unix-like environment with tools like make, yacc, and lexx). That book conveys much of the philosophy of Unix and C that has made them such powerful and lasting foundations for everything we use in computers today. Taken together, these two books give a solid (albeit fairly low-level) foundation.

Now, you may ask, why would I want to learn the C language and these low level tools today, when I really want to create great Web 2.0 sites using Ruby on Rails? (Now that's a reference that's going to date quickly, I fear.) The answer is: you probably don't. For a great many programmers, there is probably no reason to master these basics that are so close to the core of the machine. But if you are intent on mastering software development from high-level fast prototyping to low-level "to-the-metal" tweaking, this is where you need to go, and this book will convey the enjoyment and purity of working at that level with computers.

P.S. Shout out to Anne Glaser - if you see this, it's the best answer I can give to your question - sorry I didn't see it earlier.

Authored by the guy who invented the C language and the first edition of the book being the known standard for C for over a decade, this book is one of those unique books that is a must read if you want to learn how to program. Early on in the book the authors say that this book is not for a beginner programmer, so if you are a newbie in programming please pick up a different book before diving into this one. This book is also refereed to as the K&R C and is the bible for the C programming language. The text has a simple structure as well as style from the beginning it follows the same ideas of Unix as well as the C language (they invented Unix as well as C). The author defiantly knows the language although I did notice that some of the ideas were not clearly presented on some occasions. All the programs in the book compile perfectly and there are questions asked pertaining to the chapter and section. One of the downsides with all the books I read on C so far is that they do not give you the complete answers to the questions. This one is no different as there is no answers to the questions asked in the book ( you could buy the The C Answer Book: Solutions to the Exercises in the C Programming Language to actually find the answers). One issue was that the book assumes too much as is not a tutorial style book as other books. The book is also not up to date with the standards (after all the 2nd edition was published in 1988 well before the C99) so a new edition must come sooner or latter. I have read the book 2 times and I am still sketchy on some of the ideas presented with this book. The book is 185 pages although so it is straight to the point, but maybe the authors traded the number of pages with the ability to explain things more clearly.

No fluff in this text. It is lean and mean, packed with all one needs to learn the language effeciently and effectively. This book is a must read for anyone wanting to learn C and will serve as a valuable reference in the years to come.

Amazon delivered the item quickly, and the product itself is still the best C reference out there.