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The C Programming Language

The C Programming Language (sometimes termed K&R, after its authors' initials) is a computer programming book written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the latter of whom originally designed and implemented the C programming language, as well as co-designed the Unix operating system with which development of the language was closely intertwined. The book was central to the development and popularization of C and is still widely read and used today. Because the book was co-authored by the original language designer, and because the first edition of the book served for many years as the de facto standard for the language, the book was regarded by many to be the authoritative reference on C.[1][2]

This article is about the textbook. For the programming language covered in the book, see C (programming language).

Author

English

1978 (1st Edition)
1988 (2nd Edition)

History[edit]

C was created by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs in the early 1970s as an augmented version of Ken Thompson's B.[3] Another Bell Labs employee, Brian Kernighan, had written the first C tutorial,[4] and he persuaded Ritchie to coauthor a book on the language.[5] Kernighan would write most of the book's "expository" material, and Ritchie's reference manual became its appendices.


The first edition, published February 22, 1978, was the first widely available book on the C programming language. Its version of C is sometimes termed K&R C (after the book's authors), often to distinguish this early version from the later version of C standardized as ANSI C.[6]


In April 1988, the second edition of the book was published, updated to cover the changes to the language resulting from the then-new ANSI C standard, particularly with the inclusion of reference material on standard libraries. The second edition of the book (and as of 2024, the most recent) has since been translated into over 20 languages.[7] In 2012, an eBook version of the second edition was published in ePub, Mobi, and PDF formats.[8]


C was first standardized in 1989 (as ANSI X3.159-1989) and has since undergone several revisions. However, no new edition of The C Programming Language has been issued to cover the more recent standards.

Reception[edit]

Byte magazine stated in August 1983, "[The C Programming Language] is the definitive work on the C language. Don't read any further until you have this book!"[1] Jerry Pournelle wrote in the magazine that year that the book "is still the standard ... a bit terse". He continued, "You can learn the C language without getting Kernighan and Ritchie, but that's doing it the hard way. You're also working too hard if you make it the only book on C that you buy."[9]

The C++ Programming Language

The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer

second edition (item information at the Internet Archive)

The C Programming Language

. Bell Labs Computing Sciences Research Center. 2004-06-13. Archived from the original on 2017-02-21. Retrieved 17 January 2017.. Another archived page: "The C Programming Language". 2016-02-04.

"C Programming"

Answers to The C Programming Language Exercises