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My copy of Feuer's book now sits on my shelves alongside The C Programming Language by K&R and The C Answer Book by Tondo and Gimpel. The format of all three books is the same. The material covered is similar, although Feuer's coverage is less dense and perhaps less esoteric.

However, this openness of text should not lead one to conclude that the reading is easy, or that the material is trivial. Far from it. Even apparently simple

printf

statements had me thinking for quite a while. The use of pre-processor macros early in the text:

#define PRINT(format, x) printf(#x " = %" #format "\n", x)

increased my difficulty.

I found the material on operator precedence somewhat trying. I am one of those programmers that believe that the use of parentheses leaves the precedence rules less important and the code easier to read. Still, there are those who enjoy the challenge.

Enjoying the challenge is what this book is all about and I really do recommend it highly, a lot can be learnt from it.

I cannot comment on the accuracy of the code, or its conformity to standards. The author himself admits that

'The puzzles should not be read as examples of good coding; indeed some of the code is atrocious'. His emphasis is on the intellectual exercises. But I can say that any I ran through my Borland compiler executed as expected.

A good buy.