Learning GNU C


by Ciaran O'Riordan.

I'm working irregularly on this. This project was mostly dormant from 2004-2007.

The aim of this project is to produce a free C programming tutorial book with a very practical focus. By practical, I mean it should help people to start writing their own software and getting involved in existing free software projects.

View this book online:

The target audience of the book is GNU(/Hurd) and GNU/Linux users although the content should also be of use to OpenBSD, FreeBSD and NetBSD users.

The book assumes no prior knowledge of C or programming, readers with previous experience can skim through the first few chapters. The book is roughly split between the core language and the functions provided by GNU Libc.

The target completion date is July 2003 (Update 2008-07-15: ha ha, ignore this paragraph) but this is just a rough guess. I should have a release candidate ready by May 2003 and plan a two month bug hunting and correction phase.

There is also a tarball of the source files for this project created nightly from CVS, you can get it here.


This book is released under the GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.2 with no Invariant Sections.
Copyright 2002, 2003, 2008 Ciaran O'Riordan. A copy of the licence is included at the end of the book.