On the Topic of The GNU C Reference Manual

Home : Software : by Trevis Rothwell, February 2012

---

The first formal release of The GNU C Reference Manual (on ftp.gnu.org) came in 2007. After years of part-time effort bringing the manual to that point (writing a book-length document on a subject like C can take intense motivation), I finally decided that it was good enough to let other people start reading it. Several subsequent releases were made of the manual, adding more material and fixing old mistakes.

In 2012, I was informed that a new C programming book was going to supersede my own in the GNU Project. Rather than see this work disappear, I am making the last published edition (v0.2.2) available here:

• Texinfo source code
• HTML for online reading
• PDF for nice typography

As of this writing, the web page for this manual was still active at gnu.org as well.

Happy Users

This manual has been a resource referenced for courses at:

• Bucknell University
• California Polytechnic State University
• De La Salle University
• Dickinson College
• Florida International University
• Louisiana State University
• Milwaukee School of Engineering
• National Chiao Tung University
• Oregon State University
• Rochester Institute of Technology
• San Jose State University
• Stanford University
• University of Arizona
• University of California at San Diego
• University of Washington

Wow!

Artwork

In preparation for the first release, I asked Duane Bibby to draw some whimsical C-related gnu characters to display on the manual's website:

   

Duane transferred copyright ownership of the drawings to me, and I in turn transferred copyright ownership to the Free Software Foundation.

All Good Things...

As a (very) part-time volunteer, I only made this manual the focus of my attention for occasional hacking spurts. Perhaps had I put more regular effort into it, there would have been no demand for a newer text... but in any event, I had an awesome time with this manual. I got to directly work with and learn from GNU Project founder Dr. Richard Stallman, as well as many other great people around the world. My sincere thanks to all of you.

---

tjr@acm.org