Effective C (and C++)

The world runs on code written in the C programming language, yet most schools begin the curriculum with Python or Java. Effective C bridges this gap and brings C into the modern era—covering the modern C17 Standard as well as C23 features. After completing this workshop, you’ll soon be writing professional, portable, and secure C programs to power robust systems and solve real-world problems.

Book: Effective C

The world runs on code written in the C programming language, yet most schools begin the curriculum with Python or Java. Effective C bridges this gap and brings C into the modern era—covering the modern C17 Standard as well as potential C2x features. With the aid of this instant classic, you’ll soon be writing professional, portable, and secure C programs to power robust systems and solve real-world problems.

Robert C. Seacord introduces C and the C Standard Library while addressing best practices, common errors, and open debates in the C community. Developed together with other C Standards committee experts, Effective C will teach you how to debug, test, and analyze C programs. You’ll benefit from Seacord’s concise explanations of C language constructs and behaviors, and from his 40 years of coding experience.

You’ll learn:

How to identify and handle undefined behavior in a C program
The range and representations of integers and floating-point values
How dynamic memory allocation works and how to use nonstandard functions
How to use character encodings and types
How to perform I/O with terminals and file systems using C Standard streams and POSIX file descriptors
How to understand the C compiler’s translation phases and the role of the preprocessor
How to test, debug, and analyze C programs

Effective C will teach you how to write professional, secure, and portable C code that will stand the test of time.

DAY ONE
GETTING STARTED WITH C

Developing Your First C Program
Compiling and Running Your Program
Editors and Integrated Development Environments
Compilers
GNU Compiler Collection
Clang
Microsoft Visual Studio
Portability
Implementation-Defined Behavior
Unspecified Behavior
Undefined Behavior
Locale-Specific Behavior and Common Extensions

OBJECTS, FUNCTIONS, AND TYPES

Objects, Functions, Types, and Pointers
Declaring Variables
Swapping Values
Scope
Storage Duration
Alignment
Object Types
Boolean Types
Character Types
Numerical Types
void Types
Function Types
Derived Types
Pointer Types
Arrays
Structures
Unions
Tags
Type Qualifiers

DAY TWO
ARITHMETIC TYPES

Integers
Padding and Precision
The <limits.h> Header File
Declaring Integers
Unsigned Integers
Signed Integers
Integer Constants
Floating-Point
Arithmetic Conversion
Integer Conversion Rank
Integer Promotions
Usual Arithmetic Conversions
Safe Conversions

EXPRESSIONS AND OPERATORS

Simple Assignment
Evaluations
Function Invocation
Increment and Decrement Operators
Operator Precedence and Associativity
Order of Evaluation
Unsequenced and Indeterminately Sequenced Evaluations
Sequence Points
sizeof Operator
Arithmetic Operators
Unary + and – Operators
Logical Negation Operator
Multiplicative Operators
Additive Operators
Bitwise Operators
Complement Operator
Shift Operators
Bitwise AND Operator
Bitwise Exclusive OR Operator
Bitwise Inclusive OR Operator
Logical Operators
Cast Operators
Conditional Operator
_Alignof Operator
Relational Operators
Compound Assignment Operators
Comma Operator
Pointer Arithmetic

Robert Seacord

Standardization Lead

Robert C. Seacord is the Standardization Lead at Woven Planet he works on the Software Craft. Robert was previously a Technical Director at NCC Group, Secure Coding Manager at Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute, and an adjunct professor in the School of Computer Science and the Information Networking Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

He is the author of seven books, including Effective C: An Introduction to Professional C Programming (No Starch Press, 2020), The CERT C Coding Standard, Second Edition (Addison-Wesley, 2014) Secure Coding in C and C++, Second Edition (Addison-Wesley, 2013), and Java Coding Guidelines: 75 Recommendations for Reliable and Secure Programs (Addison-Wesley, 2014). He has also published more than 50 papers on software security, component-based software engineering, Web-based system design, legacy-system modernization, component repositories and search engines, and user interface design and development. Robert has been teaching secure coding in C and C++ to private industry, academia, and government since 2005. He started programming professionally for IBM in 1982, working in communications and operating system software, processor development, and software engineering and also has worked at the X Consortium, where he developed and maintained code for the Common Desktop Environment and the X Window System. Robert is on the Advisory Board for the Linux Foundation is an expert at the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG14 international standardization working group for the C programming language.