Diving into C

• The General Structure of a C Program
• Compiling and Linking
• The main() Function
• Using #include
• Simple Console Output
• Command Line Arguments
• Comments

Variables and Arrays

• Variable Types
• Declaring Variables
• Arrays
• Using sizeof
• Constants and Operators
• Expressions
• Initializers
• Casting
• Converting

Control Structures

• The if Test
• Comparison Operators
• The while Loop
• The for Loop
• The switch Statement

File I/O

• Opening and Closing Files
• Reading Text
• Reading Binary
• Writing to Files
• Console I/O

Pointers

• What is a Pointer?
• Declaring Pointers
• Dereferencing Pointers
• Pointers to Arrays
• Pointer Arithmetic
• Pointers as Function Parameters

Functions

• Declaring Functions
• Calling Functions
• Passing Parameters by Value
• Passing Parameters by Reference
• Return Values
• Function Prototypes

Dynamic Memory

• The Real World
• Using malloc() and realloc()
• Danger of Null Pointers
• Allocating Arrays
• Multidimensional Arrays
• Using calloc()
• Freeing Unneeded Memory

Structures

• Modeling Data
• Defining Structures
• Declaring Structure Variables
• Accessing Elements
• Pointers to Structures

Strings and Bytes

• Strings are char Arrays
• Pointers to Strings
• String Length
• Comparing Strings
• Other String Functions
• Character Functions
• Generic Byte-Oriented Functions

The Preprocessor

• Symbolic Constants
• Manifest Constants
• Macros
• Conditional Compilation
• Using typedef

Bit Fiddling

• Why Use Bits?
• Bit Fields and Why Not to Use Them
• Hex and Octal Constants
• Bitwise Operators
• Testing and Setting Bits
• Bit Macros

Scope and Storage Class

• Automatic Variables
• External Variables
• Accessing Bata in Other Source Files
• Static Variables
• Global Variables and Sanity

Common Mistakes

• Uninitialized Variables
• Null Pointers
• Using = for ==
• Referencing Past End of Arrays
• Memory Leaks
• Returning Auto Data from Functions

Programming Style

• Indenting
• Comments
• Variable Names
• Source File Layout

Multiple Source Files

• Multi-file Projects
• Object Files
• Header Files
• Library Files
• The Linker
• A Simple Makefile

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