Subj : Re: C lang. suggestion for a newbie...
To   : comp.os.linux.questions,comp.os.linux,comp.programming
From : Jens.Toerring
Date : Thu Aug 12 2004 12:28 pm

kamaljeet singh <mail2kjs@yahoo.com> wrote:
> hi i am interested in system programming only on the open system
> architectures like the linux os. but i have only done C prog. on the
> TurboC on windows . i want to know that do i have to learn C prog.
> differently on the different os platforms and on different compilers
> because in linux there is GCC compiler.
> in the GCC compiler there is no conio.h,graphics.h,dos.h header files
> and we have to write int main() function instead of void main()
> function.
> i have searched for C lang. books but all are for the windows platform
> only.
> from where do i get books or materials to learn C prog. in the linux
> platform???

First of all, you should learn C in the sense of the language as it
is defined by the standard and not what you may have been made to
believe it to be, but which is actually wrong C with lots of system
specific extensions. Probably the best book is Kernighan & Ritchie,
"The C Programming Language". Nearly all of that book (except
chapter 8, which is about UNIX-specific example implementations) is
about platform-independent C. But be prepared to "unlearn" a lot of
things in the process, not just "void main()";-)

If you want to do "system" programming (at least in the sense I
understand that term as programming with a certain system in mind)
you have to learn more than just C. There are lots of Unix specific
functions (and ways to deal with certain problems) for which there
are other books. A good one is e.g. W. Richard Stevens, "Advanced
Programming in the UNIX Environment" but there are a lot of others.
You can e.g. download the book "Advanced Linux Programming" from

http://www.advancedlinuxprogramming.com/

If you want to use graphics you won't be able to do much with your
knowledge you have from using the functions declared in "graphics.h".
Actually, under Linux there are several libraries you can use for
graphics programming, from very low-level (just using the functions
from the X Windowing system) to very high-level ones. You will have
to find out which one fits your requirements best.

                                     Regards, Jens
-- 
  \   Jens Thoms Toerring  ___  Jens.Toerring@physik.fu-berlin.de
   \__________________________  http://www.toerring.de

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