Rating: 
Summary: The only C reference needed
Review: I've professionally developed in C for 15 years and this is the only C book I ever take to clients. I've owned the 2nd and 4th editions and both rock; wore out the first one. Never owned K&R, never needed it, but it always seemed a bit thin. H&S has just enough samples to help figure out the reference material.
Rating:
Summary: A must-have!
Review: If I had to pick only one book, in the entire world, to use as my all-purpose C reference, this would be the book. It's well-written, accurate, and complete.
Rating:
Summary: The Benchmark of Reference Manual in any language
Review: If you can only keep one books in C. This is it. One more? K & R. Let's pray to God that Harbison and Steele will write one in C++. We need a C++ book of this caliber badly.
Rating:
Summary: The Benchmark of Reference Manual in any language
Review: If you can only keep one books in C. This is it. One more? K & R. Let's pray to God that Harbison and Steele will write one in C++. We need this kind of book in C++ badly.
Rating:
Summary: A reference + more
Review: My friend borrowed this book from me about two weeks ago and won't give it back, I have since turned to my left side over 20 times looking for it to no avail (serious). If I was to describe this book in one word it would be "Clean", everything in this book is just beautiful, from the ease of use, to the technical details, to even it's fonts and thickness of the pages, everything is so clean and precise that the book makes you want to read it and perhaps even keep it on a pillow next to you at night (but enough about my sheltered life). One thing that I did not expect before receiving this book was the amazing language overview that comes with the book, they could have sold the book with just that part and it would have still been great. The overview goes into great detail and is really good at pointing out things that other C books miss and the fact that the author is well versed on all the features of the latest C99 Standard adds even more to the wealth of information. My favorite part of the book is the part on the C Pre-processor, which had a great deal of information that I was not previously aware of. Apart from that, there is the reference side which has all the detail you could ever want in a standard library reference book, all in a very simple to search format (Oh yeah and I should mention, the index kicks ....). So long story short, if you want a single book that you can turn to for 99.9% of your standard C problems, divorce your wife and give that spot in your bed to "C: A Reference Manual (5th Edition)"... or 6th if it's out by the time you read this review. ps. If your looking for this book in a bookstore make sure the lady types in "C: A Reference Manual (5th Edition)" and not "See: A Reference Manual (5th Edition)", long story, I'll tell you another time. Hope you enjoyed reading this
Rating:
Summary: The only C reference a serious programmer needs.
Review: The definitive C reference. The only C book I use (and I use it plenty.) Much superior to Kernighan and Ritchie's book. Concise, well-written, well organized, good index. Don't let the small size of the book fool you--I've never had a question yet that it didn't answer. Covers both ANSI C and K&R (old) C and describes the differences between them. Also gives function prototypes and descriptions for the C standard library routines. This is a reference manual which is targeted to experienced programmers. If you already know several programming languages and you want to learn C, this book will work fine. If you're a beginning programmer, you should buy a C tutorial book first and buy this book later.
Rating: 
Summary: Good reference
Review: This book gives a good listing of many of the functions in C. I. personally, find it difficult to follow at times most likely because of my inexperence with programming in general. As I gain more experence I expect to be able to follow the refernces better. The are listing of functions that do not exist on all systems. So it seems fairly complete. For example. I wanted to play with the sleep function and discovered that it was not currently avalible.
I gave this 3 stars instead of 5 because the binding is already coming apart. I bought this book new around a year ago here on Amazon and the binding is already coming apart. NOT GOOD!
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Summary: This book has no equal
Review: This book has no equal. If you need exact information about any fine point of C, the depth and precision of this book is unique. Also, I'm not aware of any other reference on C that clearly tracks the differences between K&R (original) C, traditional C, and ISO C. If you have to deal with legacy code, it can be invaluable to understand why older code does certain things the way it does. (You thought your predecessor did something stupid, only to find that it only looks that way because of a change in the language.) Finally, the 4th edition includes advice on writing C code that will be compatible with the C subset of C++. In a market jammed with 1200 page piles of padded garbage (and the only useful content pirated from the documentation that comes with the compilers), this book really stands out. It's an amazing piece of work. I've owned the 2nd, 3rd, and now the 4th editions, and if there should be a 5th I'll buy it without hesitation. I actually have two copies of the 4th edition: one at work and one at home. What more can I say? Note that the only negative reviews are because someone didn't read the title -- this is a REFERENCE manual, not a tutorial for beginners.
Rating:
Summary: my choice for a desert island
Review: This book has the thoroughness that Kernighan and Ritchie (another well known C Reference) sacrifice for the sake of brevity. Buy this after K & R. It is the only other book on C you will ever need. My one complaint is the poor quality of the index, but this flaw is not enough to withold 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: my choice for a desert island
Review: This book has the thoroughness that Kernighan and Ritchie (another well known C Reference) sacrifice for the sake of brevity. Buy this after K & R. It is the only other book on C you will ever need. My one complaint is the poor quality of the index, but this flaw is not enough to withold 5 stars.
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