C23 Programming in 14 Days: Master Modern C and Systems Programming Through Daily Drills (Learn Programming in 14 Days)

Fourteen days of drills that turn C into something a compiler cannot catch you being wrong about.

This is a drill manual, not a narrative course. Warnings are compiled as errors and both a memory sanitizer and an undefined-behavior sanitizer are switched on from the first example in Chapter 1, and they never come off. Undefined behavior itself is named in Chapter 1, with a listing whose plausible-looking output is the trap, not left as folklore to be picked up later. Every listing in the book was compiled and run — 373 source files, 372 captured runs — and every printed output block, sanitizer reports included, is a paste from that run. Each chapter states a rule in as few words as it can, shows the rule working in a short numbered example, and hands it back as problems. The programming problems build one real program across the book: msh, a miniature shell that starts as a bare read-eval-print loop and ends forking processes, redirecting files and wiring a pipeline. A reader who works the programming problems finishes with a working shell. A reader who skips them still finishes with the language, because the exposition never depends on the shell existing.

The fourteen chapters carry the whole working core of C. The first week covers the toolchain and the translation model, types and storage, operators and conversions, control flow, functions and the call stack, arrays and strings, and pointers and pointer arithmetic. The second week covers the memory map and dynamic memory, structs and linked structures, file I/O, the preprocessor and multi-file builds, function pointers and variadic functions, the POSIX process layer of forks, pipes and signals, and closes with undefined behavior, defensive C and C23.

Every chapter has the same shape, in the same order. A short opener states what the chapter covers. Numbered sections state the rules. Each rule carries its own worked examples: complete programs, compiled and run, with the real output pasted underneath. Five problem sets close the chapter in a fixed ladder: review questions, worked problems with full solutions, worked programming problems with complete programs, and unassisted practice problems in both written and programming form. Review question answers sit at the end of the chapter. The practice problems have no answers anywhere, by design.

Your 14-Chapter Path

• 1. THE TOOLCHAIN AND THE TRANSLATION MODEL


• 2. TYPES, VALUES AND STORAGE


• 3. OPERATORS, EXPRESSIONS AND CONVERSIONS


• 4. CONTROL FLOW


• 5. FUNCTIONS AND THE CALL STACK


• 6. ARRAYS, STRINGS AND BOUNDS


• 7. POINTERS AND POINTER ARITHMETIC


• 8. THE MEMORY MAP AND DYNAMIC MEMORY


• 9. STRUCTS, UNIONS AND LINKED STRUCTURES


• 10. FILE I/O AND SERIALIZATION


• 11. THE PREPROCESSOR AND MULTI-FILE BUILDS


• 12. FUNCTION POINTERS AND VARIADIC FUNCTIONS


• 13. PROCESSES, PIPES AND SIGNALS


• 14. UNDEFINED BEHAVIOR, DEFENSIVE C AND C23

Who It's For

A reader who can already program in some language and wants fluency in C under test conditions. Students on a systems or C course. Readers preparing for an examination or a technical interview. Working programmers who measure a book by how many problems they can work afterward. No prior C is assumed.

314 worked examples. 294 figures. 770 numbered problems. 382 pages. Written to C17, with C23 and POSIX clearly signposted, never smuggled in.

Turn on the warnings, turn on the sanitizers, and start Chapter 1.