This is a great reference, but not an introductory text. It will not hold your hand at all, and assumes some maturity as a programmer. Even though it does define and introduce all (I believe) aspects of the language, it would be better to have a decent grasp of C before picking this one up. That said, as a C programmer I keep this book within easy reach while I work. ( )

I think of this book as the new K&R: indispensable for C programmers. While I'll always keep my K&R, this book will always sit right next to it on my bookshelf. C has evolved in the 20 years since the last edition of K&R was published, and C in a Nutshell does an excellent job of carrying on where it left off. Like all of O'Reilly's "In A Nutshell" books, the first part of the book covers important basic topics in C (such as some fairly new ones, such as support for wide characters and complex numbers), while the latter half is a reference for many of the standard headers, command line options for gcc, etc.

Highly recommended for all C programmers. ( )

Great way to learn C. ( )