This question already has answers here:
Closed 12 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Why there is not a comprehensive c archive network?
Everyone knows that C is very small language, it has just language primitives and almost no standard library (no data structures or algorithms).
Therefore I have a question, how do I find good C libraries for data structures, algorithms and perhaps system programming?
For example, if I need a hash-table, how do I find a good implementation? Or for example, if I need to work with graphs, what do I do?
So far I have been writing everything myself. But my hash table implementation is nowhere good enough. It's very basic.
What do advanced C programmers do with this problem? Do they really write all the libraries again themselves?
Thanks, Boda Cydo.
GLib.
There really isn't anything as "go to" as Boost in C++ (STL doesn't count as its part of the standard).
Beyond GLib, there is APR
http://directory.fsf.org/category/clibs/
http://ccan.ozlabs.org/
EDIT: CCAN has moved domains to https://ccodearchive.net/
There isn't any set way.... there's just a proliferation of all kinds of frameworks out there. Often there is different forces on what people want, eg, depending if its for embedded systems, PCs, flavor of OS, or whatever.
Related
This question already has answers here:
Closed 10 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Generic data structure libraries for C?
Starting off in C programming and wondering if anyone is aware of any library containing implementations of data structures such as linked list, hash maps etc ?
glib. Hard to use if you're just-starting-off because you actually have to know how to get around in pointers.
It's reasonably standard for applications that want to use that sort of thing (excuse the wishy-washy opining).
An option I usually prefer is to wrap C++ STL with C APIs myself. I don't know if there's a standard converter for this. But this is because most developers I work with understand C++-to-C APIs (part of the corporate code landscape at my firm) and STL much better than glib, in which client code tends to be egregiously error prone.
I am searching a library in C/pragma/.. for basic programming tasks.
Something for handling and creating Lists and hasmaps and arrays and souch stuff.
So i dont have to reinvent the wheel again and again and write the same structures again and again.
But has to be pure C library.
Thanks for any help.
You might want to retag your question and remove the C++ tag, as your question is a little strange with the tag.
If you need something implemented in C, then look at Glib, which is part of GTK+, and it implements data structures like linked lists and trees.
Alternatively, the Apache Portable Runtime is a project from Apache which is also written in C, and is used in the Apache web server.
In plain c projects I tend to use the APR.
Maybe it covers all the things you need. And it provides a nice abstraction of the OS too.
Glib
In addition to the other answers, you might take a look at the source code accompanying the book C Interfaces and Implentations.
This question already has answers here:
Closed 12 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Why there is not a comprehensive c archive network?
Like Python has a Cheeseshop and Perl has CPAN?
Google results have a lot of C++ results and I am looking for purely C libraries.
PS: Looking for *nix libraries
Yep. SourceForge, Codeplex, Github, and Google. Also, your distro's packages, if you are on Linux.
Not really, no. Google is really your best friend. Since C doesn't have a standardized body running the language in the same way as, say, Python, there is no central place for packages and marketing material.
Your best bet really is your local Linux distribution - Linux applications generally make heavy use of many layers of libraries, which you can use as a reference.
Well, there's CCAN (although I'm not sure how good it is - never really used it).
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
since I was at the first year of my University I always envied my fellows (mainly coming from a tech-oriented professional school) for knowing C. I came from a natural-sciences-oriented lyceum and never had programming experience or courses but some summer work with PHP learned from a teach-yourself-PHP-in-7-hours (and my programming interest was very recent). I want to know ... was it a legitimate envy? Does any programmer have to know C? Does C provide deep understanding on how a system works or how programming has to be carried out? I know that when programming C you have to have a strong understanding about buffers, memory, and so on. So I want your opinion on it.
No, you don't have to know C. But knowledge of C (or any other "close to the machine but not assembler" language) greatly enhances your potential as a programmer. Because you will understand a lot more of the inner workings.
And of course knowledge of assembler is also valuable. But in the above paragraph, I wanted to target the low end of computer language. Just because in modern languages, we take so much for granted (OO, extensive libraries, garbage collection to name a few). And yes it helps us programmers to work more efficiently. But it hides some of the machine aspects that we sometimes need to see and that's why it is so important that we need to know the inner workings.
While I think it is important to understand memory allocation, pointers, registers, ... I would say that too much experience in C can also be a barrier to grasp higher level languages, or OO languages. C tends to make you think procedurally and that can be a bad thing in some cases ...
I would definitely not recommend C as a first language, but it can be of great help to do some C at some point...
As a side note, I think that assembly can be much more useful to help you understand basic principle. At the same time assembly is far enough from any language that you would use (unless you work in a very specialized field). That will help you keep a different mindset when doing assembly than when using a higher level language.
This is a quite discussable topic. I personally think that knowing C enhances your ability to work with other languages too when you understand what's going on under the hood. But you don't have to know C to be able to produce high quality code.
Eric Sink has also once thought of that question.
Something I find missing from most of these answers is that C is a very easy language to learn. Everything you'll ever need to know about the syntax is contained in one thin, concise book (K&R), and that includes all the standard libraries. So I'd encourage you to at least skim a book and see what it's all about, even if you don't intend to use it.
That simple C syntax only gets expanded for most modern C-based languages (C++, C#, Java). You can't say you really know those languages until you've mastered at least a subset of the hundreds of libraries that come with them, and that can take months or years of experience.
What's tough about C is that it can expose you to the true nature of the machine underneath. If you really want to grok how a computer works, you need to understand things like pointers, memory allocation, and stack vs. heap vs. executable code. You can learn basic C syntax in a few hours, and that puts you on the road to understanding much more. Saying "I'm a C expert" is just a proxy for saying, "I really understand how a computer works."
You don't necessarily have to know C, but imo every programmer should know about basic machine architecture and how applications interact with the OS and the hardware.
Obviously if you're going to study this, C is a good choice for a language, but not the only option.
Another good reason to know C is that a lot of code is written in C so if you want to learn from others code, it will be very helpful.
In addition to Gamecats answer, in my experience working with people in other languages, there is a difference in skill between the guys that know C and the guys that don't. I work primarily in Java and certainly appreciate having spent a few years working with C before I did. On top of that I also did quite a bit of Perl work as well. I would say knowing as many languages as possible helps to give you different views on your work and applying different paradigms
C is not my language of choice, but even to this day, C is everywhere.
When I do some small code in Lua using LuaCurl, I use a C library. Lua itself is written in C.
When I do some Seaside Web application in Squeak Smalltalk, I use a VM generated in C (the Squeak VM is written in Smalltalk, and then it generates C code as a portable assembler).
So I would not start learning programming with C (see this thread for other choices), but as a programmer, knowing C is very handy even if it is not your language of choice.
In the same way that not every mechanic needs to know the inner workings of an engine to fix a car, not every programmer needs to learn C to produce code.
however, the ones who do, acquire a better understanding of the craft and ultimately achieve a higher level of success.
I share the same sentiments as the others in this thread, however, to answer the question that was asked:
The only programmers that have to know C are C programmers.
All knowledge is useful, so yes, you should envy their knowledge. You should also envy people who are AI nerds and know LISP, etc. The best mix would be a dynamic language, a functional language, SQL, a low level language and an object oriented language.
If you want some stranger to make some recommendations, I would go Python, OCaml, SQL, C and Java/C#. But, find your own path :-)
I think you have.
Languages have their own evolution. They developed within a very intriguing and fast evolution of computer systems. CPU power grew, features grew, Assembler got more complex... everything got more powerful.
Thing is: if you never saw the low level and "easy" beginnings, and you start with some high-level languages like C#, C++, or Java, you won't understand the elegance or backend perspective of these very powerful languages.
I think you don't need to learn LISP, because if differs a lot from common C-like languages. But some C is a must-know. It's for developers from developers, very near to machine code. Know what the machine does when you program it.
Memory allocation and pointers.
After getting to handle C and C++, even if only in school, you have a better understanding of what needs to happen in memory in order for you to throw objects and references around and you get a better appreciation of what, for instance, garbage collection implies.
Also, in school, starting with Pascal and then C allowed us to learn "programming" first, the old way, and then move to more advanced languages (OOP, etc) on top of that.
Have to know/learn C? Probably not, although it might make learning some concepts easier. Understanding something about memory allocation, structures and pointers of all kinds is worthwhile and C is a good language to use to gain that understanding. Plus, to be honest, "straight" C is really not complex. Tricky to get right, sure, but not in itself complex. I'd advise getting hold of a compiler that wasn't a C++ one too, that way can lie madness. (Fond memories of Quick C For Windows)
Have to know/learn C++? Definitely not.
I would use a metaphor: Knowing C for programmers is like knowing latin for (western languages) writers. It is not something you need, especially if you just write sports columns or cooking recipe books, but if you want to refine your craft it is something that I would consider nearly mandatory. But it will not be useful for daily work on ordinary software.
Or knowing mechanics for a car pilot, or how to build sails for a sailor. At some level of expertise, you need to know how the things you use are working internally.
If you learn C, try to master the pointer concept, and the way they map to the hardware. That's really the point of learning C. Do not spend time on the rest of the language.
Maybe it was just my particular educational experience, but I hated C/C++ in college and haven't touched it since. I'm thankful for learning about the concepts involved, like pointers and memory allocation, but trying to accomplish anything with the tools that were available to me was too cumbersome for me to want to bother. I hope your experience is better.
("slightly" tongue-in-check) You should learn it if, for no other reason, than it will make you love whatever language you're working in at that moment.
I don't call myself a C programmer, but I can write code in C. It has helped me a number of times in my career. I've spent a lot of time working with Visual Basic, and there are some things you just can't do with VB. It's been very handy to drop down to C to do things like windows hooks. It's made me the "hero" a time or two.
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 4 years ago.
Improve this question
I attended a job fair yesterday and a developer asked me how I would rank my proficiency in C. I then realized that this is incredibly arbitrary and almost impossible to nail down, so my question is what knowledge makes you an expert in programming C?
Edit: or what would the breakdown be? what makes you good, decent, proficient, etc.
Edit again: I was looking more for like a list of skills or some other constructive measure by which to judge one's own proficiency in C, as that's hard to do.
List so far:
Experience in large projects
Mastery of Pointers (and memory management, I'd assume)
Mastery of a debugger (gdb, ...)
Mastery of a profiler (gprof,...)
Mastery of a memory profiler (valgrind, ...)
Knowledge of the fundamental standards
I think the trouble with this question is that the answer is kind of meaningless. I see people talking about experience, and that's good, and I see people talking about understanding the intricacies of the language, and that's good. However, if I were hiring someone to work on my C project, and I had a magic 8-ball that would give me an accurate answer to any one (and only one) question, I would never ask it, "Are they a C expert".
Why?
Just because someone is a C expert doesn't mean that they're a good software developer. Experience and language familiarity are good, but I think they are both trumped by that intangible, un-quantifiable property that makes someone a "good software developer". What I'm trying to say is, "What makes you a C programming expert?" is not a useful question, because there are more important questions. If someone is a Good Programmer, they will rise to the occasion.
As an example: You can be a C programming expert and be horrible on a team. You can be a C programming expert and refuse to use version control. You can be a C programming expert without knowing how to actually DO anything with C.
The "without" clauses in those sentences are equally important questions: What makes you a good team programmer? What's the best way to use SCM x or y? How do you approach programming a client/server game, or billing application, or web browser, or operating system, or compiler, in C? If a candidate told me "No, I am not a C expert", but gave me great answers to these other questions, I would hire them in a heartbeat over the guy who the magic 8-ball said was a C expert, but doesn't know how to check his code into subversion and hasn't learned a new language in 12 years.
When I interviewed with Google, the interviewer told me to think about it this way. On a scale of 1-10 for C proficiency, to say you're a "10" means you've written papers and/or books or been a speaker in a conference on programming in C. Based on this, very few people are 10s.
FWIW, I have been programming in C for 15 years. I consider myself very proficient. I'd perhaps give myself a solid 8 or 8.5.
To someone less skilled than you, you're an expert.
To someone more skilled than you, you're a newbie.
Experience is key, knowing the "rules" and syntax of the of the language is of course a must, but it is only a base. Learning the common pitfalls and idioms for doing things right is key.
Knowing what if any resources exist to get help from while your programing, and of course, knowing you're tool chain. I've known many C++ "experts" who had never used a debugger, or a memory tracker. If you ask me, being an expert in something is different from being proficient in something in you knowing all aspects of it.
Everyone is an expert at a job fair
You're an expert in c if you can answer all the questions tagged "c" on stackoverflow.com without blinking.
This doesn't directly answer your question (sorry), but it might help you decide how you classify yourself.
Instead of just "expert" and "clueless newbie" I prefer the three-level system of expertise used by the medieval guilds:
Apprentice
Still needs to RTFM.
Getting to grips with the tools and techniques of his craft.
Needs supervision.
Journeyman
Has Read The Effin' Manual.
Competent with all the standard tools and techniques of his craft.
Can work alone, and can supervise apprentices on routine jobs.
Master
Could have Written The Effin' Manual.
Is developing or adopting new tools and techniques.
Can oversee a major project that might never have been attempted before.
At a job fair? There are no experts: everybody's an expert. :)
Some may disagree but I think experience is key to being an expert in any language. I know plenty of people who've past the certification test but couldn't apply their knowledge to anything practical in the real world.
So I think overall being an expert is a product of having enough knowledge on a given subject (C) and then having applied it to enough real world scenarios to make the mistakes that we all do and learn from them.
The answers to this question do make for some interesting reading - it seems that we can't get good convergence on what defines an expert here. What hope is there going to be in a broader forum like a jobs fair? :-)
But to put my own 2 cents in...
I think there's two kinds of C expert.
There's the expert in the academic sense (as in "could write their own compiler", "has written papers").
There's the pragmatic expert. I would like to define this as "someone who can write elegant C code that anyone can understand".
I would take one of the latter over the former in a heartbeat. If you've got a chunk of code written by an expert that is so brittle that can only be read and understood by another expert then for all intents that code is unmaintainable.
It's all very nice that the author of this code remembers the intricacies of type conversions in the middle of expressions, but it's much better if the code has been written so that it's completely unambiguous.
Projects usually have enough technical challenge without adding the need for all team members to have memorized the C'99 standard.
You're an expert in C when you can write your own C compiler.
Interview questions like this are always tough. You want to blow your own horn a little, but not sound like a blowhard.
If you have done a lot with C (say, worked on open source projects in C), then I'd respond with that, but not just by pointing to the list of accomplishments on your resume, but by talking about one or more of them and what was particularly interesting or challenging about it (in regards to its use of C).
How about having read "Expert C Programming" by Peter van der Linden and remembering everything he covered?
Lacking a standard test there's really no way to decide what expert level is but here are a few of my litmus tests, everyone's list is different, I'm sure.
Without looking at documentation:
Know the precedence of the main operators so you don't have to litter your code with parens to avoid getting the wrong order of evaluation
Be able to write a prototype for a simple function pointer
Be comfortable with passing a pointer to a pointer
Understand block, function, module scope
There are more items like this.
On the other hand, I don't think you have to be able to understand or be able to write out Duff's device or figure out obfuscated C contests in your head to consider yourself an expert.
Even if I considered myself an expert (not sure I do) I probably would never claim it in a job interview.
Andrew
Mastery of pointers.
I would say that for any given language, experience is the key thing. It just takes time to learn a language and learn the APIs and 'idioms' that the language uses. Whether someone is an expert in anything or not is something that should be asked of ones peers. To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, "If you answer more questions than you ask, you might be an expert."
I think a fair answer would be understanding all of the intracies of ISO C.
The reality, as any comp.lang.c regular will tell you, is that almost nothing that people need to do can be done in pure ISO C, as you generally need to interact with your environment in a more well defined way. That's where POSIX comes about.
I would not blink at anyone who self-ranked themselves as an "Expert" who had a solid understanding of the language of C, a decent understanding of what ISO C promises, and a working understanding of the POSIX functions.
Being able to write papers/books doesn't necessarily make one an expert programmer. It takes plenty of hard work, practical experience and a good understanding of various C libraries.
Good luck!