Rating: 
Summary: Very Useful Book.
Review: My review was written for the C version only. I have not and shall never use C#. I use Linux, OS/2 and OS/390 not Micro$oft.Recently I have had to brush up on my C programming skills as I haven't written anything since mid 1983. This is one of two books I have found that have been most useful. Unfortunetly, I have yet to find a book on C that is all encompassing and comprehensive. This book is very good refernce for specific topics. The only reason I didn't give this tome 5 stars is that it failed to meet a few of my queries (these were very specific) and I would have liked a few more example bits of code. But perhaps I am being a bit picky. I used to use the 1st and 2nd editions; but this edition is far superior. I would certainly consider buying any future updates to this book, depending upon how vast the updates would be.
Rating: 
Summary: Stay away from Schildt
Review: One of the people who sat on the committee that defined the C language says "I'm sure there's an effective drinking game lurking in this book." (Peter Seebach) He's got a review of this work on the web that's worthwile. As with all of Herb Schildt's works, this one shows remarkable ignorance of the C language from someone who purports to be an expert in it. This is made worse by the clear, concise writing style; people reading it are likely to conflate that with an understanding of the topic at had, and be misled into making programming mistakes that can come back to bite them later. He has a tendency to mistake quirks of one C compiler for language features (e.g. asserting that numbers are always stored as twos complement), makes rookie mistakes like thinking that C allows main to return void, sometimes invokes unspecified behavior such as listing standard #include headers in all caps, often has examples that will crash or loop endlessly if given unexpected inputs, etc. Worst, some of these will work on e.g. Microsoft Visual C++, causing people to try them and think their program is okay only to have it fail in mysterious ways when they eventually have to build it with Borland or another compiler or try to port it to another (Mac, Unix, etc) platform. Avoid this book.
Rating:
Summary: Stay away from Schildt
Review: One of the people who sat on the committee that defined the C language says "I'm sure there's an effective drinking game lurking in this book." (Peter Seebach) He's got a review of this work on the web that's worthwile. As with all of Herb Schildt's works, this one shows remarkable ignorance of the C language from someone who purports to be an expert in it. This is made worse by the clear, concise writing style; people reading it are likely to conflate that with an understanding of the topic at had, and be misled into making programming mistakes that can come back to bite them later. He has a tendency to mistake quirks of one C compiler for language features (e.g. asserting that numbers are always stored as twos complement), makes rookie mistakes like thinking that C allows main to return void, sometimes invokes unspecified behavior such as listing standard #include headers in all caps, often has examples that will crash or loop endlessly if given unexpected inputs, etc. Worst, some of these will work on e.g. Microsoft Visual C++, causing people to try them and think their program is okay only to have it fail in mysterious ways when they eventually have to build it with Borland or another compiler or try to port it to another (Mac, Unix, etc) platform. Avoid this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Inaccurate
Review: Schildt makes numerous errors.
One example:
printf("%f", sizeof f); Clearly wrong: sizeof f has does not have type double.
Another example: /* Write 6 integers to a disk file. */
void put_rec(int rec[6], FILE *fp)
{
int len;
len = fwrite(rec, sizeof rec, 1, fp);
if (len != 1) printf("write error");
} Wrong again; rec is converted to a pointer to int, rather than an array of 6 ints, because it is in the parameter of a function (try it if you don't believe me). Another example:
You may also declare main() as void if it does not return a value. Not at all. main returns int and only int. One last example:
x = *p * (*p++); This was his attempt to give a code snippet where the order of evaluation is specified. It's blatantly wrong: *p or may or may not be evaluated before p++. There are many many other errors. This book is only useful as a reference if you are competent enough with C to not need it, in which case, why buy it?
Rating:
Summary: Setting the Record Straight
Review: Some of the reviewers have stated that main() must return an int.
Main can be used as a void function as Herb has stated. It appears some reviewers have issues with Herb and not necessarily his book(s).
I have found plenty of useful information in this book. Trees, lists, sorting, and on and on!
I strongly recommend this as a reference for beginners and journeymen programmers who may need to "reach back" occasionally and use some of Herb's contributions.
Rating:
Summary: Setting the Record Straight
Review: Some of the reviewers have stated that main() must return an int.
Main can be used as a void function as Herb has stated. It appears some reviewers have issues with Herb and not necessarily his book(s).
I have found plenty of useful information in this book. Trees, lists, sorting, and on and on!
I strongly recommend this as a reference for beginners and journeymen programmers who may need to "reach back" occasionally and use some of Herb's contributions.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent C reference book
Review: Some people hated this book but I'm not sure why. I found it to be a good reference book for standard C. It doesn't teach you C and includes
nothing about C++...its just what the title says
"C: The Complete Reference". I only includes
standard stuff so that it should work on any compiler. I recommend it to anyone who wants a reference book for standard ANSI C.
Rating:
Summary: Horrid, simply horrid
Review: The book looks very impressive but is not balanced. E.g. it devotes a lot of it's 800+ pages discussing arcane subjects (like the origin of the B programming language) and doesn't treat basic concepts fully or properly. I still can't get a print fcn to do a line feed and nowhere in Schmidt's book does it really even fully explain the print function. Also he devotes 1/2 of a page to LOOPS: that's it! Basically you figure out what to do by compiling your programs hundereds of times. Also there are really NO really detailed program examples for the concepts. You read about something and that's it. There are some code fragments but not enough to illustrate critical C concepts. I'll never buy another Schildt book but somehow he looks good or profitable to whomever publishes this stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: Competition is none - This is the best C book out there.
Review: This book is by far the best programming book i've ever read. The information in this book is presented in a way I find superior to other books. The language used is very good, explanations and examples are short & clear, yet tells you everything.
I saw some reviewers rated this book = 1 , because of not conforming to the ANSI standard or leaving out important C++ topics (!) - Those guys need help, not C books.
Rating:
Summary: C the complete reference 3Rd edition by h. schildt
Review: This book is the best reference book for C programming language that i have found .
Its set up so that when you look something up it explains it , gives the basic
format for the usage , and includes simple examples of each.
its good for beginners , covers all c compilers . its a must have for writting c programs , and learning c language .
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