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Modern C, Third Edition

Name: Modern C, Third Edition
Author: Jens Gustedt
ISBN: 9781633437777

by Jens Gustedt

September 2025

Intermediate to advanced

552 pages

14h 5m

English

Manning Publications

Audiobook available

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Modern C, Third Edition
copyright
contents
Praise for Modern C
preface
acknowledgments
about this book
about the author
about the cover
Level 0: Encounter

1 Getting started
1.1 Imperative programming1.2 Compiling and running
2 The principal structure of a program
2.1 Grammar2.2 Declarations2.3 Definitions2.4 Statements2.4.1 Iteration2.4.2 Function calls2.4.3 Function return
Level 1: Acquaintance and Buckle up
3 Everything is about control
3.1 Conditional execution3.2 Iterations3.3 Multiple selection
4 Expressing computations
4.1 Operands and operators4.2 Arithmetic4.2.1 +, -, and *4.2.2 Division and remainder4.3 Operators that modify objects4.4 Boolean context4.4.1 Comparison4.4.2 Logic4.5 The ternary or conditional operator4.6 Evaluation order
5 Basic values and data
5.1 The abstract state machine5.1.1 Values5.1.2 Types5.1.3 Binary representation and the abstract state machine5.1.4 Optimization5.2 Basic types5.3 Specifying values5.3.1 Complex constants5.4 Implicit conversions5.5 Initializers5.6 Named constants5.6.1 Read-only objects5.6.2 Enumerations5.6.3 Macros5.6.4 Compound literals5.6.5 The constexpr construct5.7 Binary representations5.7.1 Unsigned integers5.7.2 Bit sets and bitwise operators5.7.3 Shift operators5.7.4 Boolean values5.7.5 Signed integers5.7.6 Fixed-width integer types5.7.7 Bit-precise integer types5.7.8 Floating-point data
6 Derived data types
6.1 Arrays6.1.1 Array declaration6.1.2 Array operations6.1.3 Array length6.1.4 Arrays as parameters6.1.5 Strings are special6.2 Pointers as opaque types6.3 Structures6.3.1 Simple structures to access fields by name6.3.2 Structures with fields of different types6.3.3 Nested structures6.3.4 Coalescing structure fields6.4 New names for types: Type aliases
7 Functions
7.1 Simple functions7.2 main is special7.3 Recursion
8 C library functions
8.1 General properties of the C library and its functions8.1.1 Headers8.1.2 Interfaces8.1.3 Error checking8.1.4 Bounds-checking interfaces8.1.5 Platform preconditions8.2 Integer arithmetic8.3 Numerics8.4 Input, output, and file manipulation8.4.1 Unformatted text output8.4.2 Files and streams8.4.3 Text I/O8.4.4 Formatted output8.4.5 Unformatted text input8.5 String processing and conversion8.5.1 Portability of string processing8.6 Time8.7 Runtime environment settings8.8 Program termination and assertions
Level 2: Cognition
9 Style
9.1 Formatting9.2 Naming9.3 Internationalization, so to speak
10 Organization and documentation
10.1 Interface documentation10.2 Implementation10.2.1 Macros10.2.2 Pure functions10.2.3 Attributes
11 Pointers
11.1 Pointer operations11.1.1 Address-of and object-of operators11.1.2 Pointer addition11.1.3 Pointer subtraction and difference11.1.4 Pointer validity11.1.5 Null pointers11.2 Pointers and structures11.3 Pointers and arrays11.3.1 Array and pointer access are the same11.3.2 Array and pointer parameters are the same11.4 Function pointers
12 The C memory model
12.1 A uniform memory model12.2 Unions12.3 Memory and state12.4 Pointers to unspecific objects12.5 Explicit conversions12.6 Effective types12.7 Alignment
13 Storage
13.1 malloc and friends13.1.1 A complete example with varying array size13.1.2 Ensuring consistency of dynamic allocations13.1.3 Flexible array members13.2 Storage duration, lifetime, and visibility13.2.1 Static storage duration13.2.2 Automatic storage duration13.3 Digression: Using objects before their definition13.4 Initialization13.5 Digression: A machine model
14 More involved processing and I/O
14.1 Text processing14.2 Formatted input14.3 Extended character sets14.4 UTF character encodings14.5 Restartable text conversion14.6 Binary streams
15 Program failure
15.1 Wrongdoings15.1.1 Arithmetic violations15.1.2 Invalid conversions15.1.3 Value violations15.1.4 Type violations15.1.5 Access violations15.1.6 Value misinterpretation15.1.7 Explicit invalidation15.2 Program state degradation15.2.1 Unbounded recursion15.2.2 Storage exhaustion15.2.3 Other scarce resources15.3 Unfortunate incidents15.3.1 Escalating state degradation15.3.2 Collisions and race conditions15.3.3 Inappropriate library calls and macro invocations15.3.4 Deadlocks15.4 Series of unfortunate events15.5 Dealing with failures15.6 Error checking and cleanup
Level 3: Experience
16 Performance
16.1 Inline functions16.2 Using restrict qualifiers16.3 Unsequenced and reproducible attributes16.4 Measurement and inspection
17 Function-like macros
17.1 How function-like macros work17.2 Argument checking17.3 Accessing the context of invocation17.4 Variable-length argument lists17.4.1 Variadic macros17.4.2 A detour: Variadic functions17.5 Default arguments
18 Type-generic programming
18.1 Inherent type-generic features in C18.1.1 Operators18.1.2 Default promotions and conversions18.1.3 Macros18.1.4 Variadic functions18.1.5 Function pointers18.1.6 void pointers18.1.7 Type-generic C library functions18.2 Generic selection18.3 Type inference18.3.1 The auto feature18.3.2 The typeof feature18.4 Anonymous functions
19 Variations in control flow
19.1 A detailed example19.2 Sequencing19.3 Short jumps19.4 Functions19.5 Long jumps19.6 Signal handlers
20 Threads
20.1 Simple interthread control20.2 Race-free initialization and destruction20.3 Thread-local data20.4 Critical data and critical sections20.5 Communicating through condition variables20.6 More sophisticated thread management20.7 Ensure liveness
21 Atomic access and memory consistency
21.1 The “happened-before” relation21.2 C library calls that provide synchronization21.3 Sequential consistency21.4 Other consistency models
Technical annex
A. Transitional code
B. C compilers
B.1 AttributesB.2 Missing #embedB.3 Missing constexprB.4 Missing 128-bit integer support
C. C libraries
C.1 Functions borrowed from POSIX or similar systemsC.2 Improved UTF-8 supportC.3 Bit utilitiesC.4 Checked integer arithmeticC.5 Formatted IOC.6 Mathematical functionsC.7 A reference implementation for musl libc

Content preview from Modern C, Third Edition

12 The C memory model

This chapter covers

Understanding object representations
Working with untyped pointers and casts
Restricting object access with effective types and alignment

Pointers present us with a certain abstraction of the environment and state in which our program is executed, the C memory model. We may apply the unary operator & to (almost) all objects¹ to retrieve their address and use it to inspect and change the state of our execution.

This access to objects via pointers is still an abstraction because, in C, no distinction of the “real” location of an object is made. It could reside in your computer’s RAM, on a disk file, or correspond to an I/O port of a temperature sensor on the moon; you shouldn’t care. C is supposed ...

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Modern C, Third Edition

by Jens Gustedt