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C From The Ground Up

A progressive C learning workbook from basics to systems programming.

Each lesson is a small, readable program with the explanation in the comments and the code inline. The workbook is meant to stay close to the code that is actually here. This is not a polished application suite or portfolio showcase. It is a progression of lessons, exercises, and a few larger workbook-style projects.

How This Book Works

Every chapter follows the same pattern:

  1. A prose explanation of the concepts being taught
  2. The full, runnable C source file with detailed comments
  3. Compile-and-run instructions

The original .c files in the repository are the single source of truth. The comments are the lesson content. Read the chapter prose for the overview, then study the source to see it in action.

Structure

The book is organized into five progressive parts:

  • Part 1: The Beginner Path – Core language fundamentals from Hello World through strings
  • Part 2: The Intermediate Path – Pointers, structs, dynamic memory, file I/O, and command-line arguments
  • Part 3: The Advanced Path – Projects and deeper topics including function pointers, recursion, linked lists, bit manipulation, and a line-based text editor
  • Part 4: The Expert Path – Systems programming with sockets, process management, hash tables, and multithreading
  • Part 5: Expert Systems – Multi-file projects, external libraries, terminal UI with ncurses, data parsing, and a capstone text adventure

Quick Start

Most lessons are single-file programs. Pick one .c file, compile it, and run it:

cc -Wall -Wextra -std=c23 \
  "Part 1 - The Beginner Path_ Core Concepts/1_hello_world.c" \
  -o /tmp/1_hello_world

/tmp/1_hello_world

If your compiler does not support -std=c23 yet, use -std=c17.

Build Notes

  • The repo-level verification baseline prefers -std=c23 and falls back to -std=c17 when a compiler does not yet accept C23.
  • Most lessons compile with cc -Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic -Wstrict-prototypes -std=c23 lesson.c -o lesson_name.
  • Lessons 26 through 30 use POSIX APIs (sockets, fork, waitpid, pthread).
  • Lesson 30 needs -pthread.
  • Lesson 32 needs -lm.
  • Lessons 33 and 35 need -lncurses or -lncursesw, depending on your system.

Verification

The supported verification flow is:

mdbook build
CC=clang sh scripts/smoke_check.sh
CC=gcc sh scripts/smoke_check.sh

If your local GCC is versioned, use that compiler name instead, for example CC=gcc-15 sh scripts/smoke_check.sh.

GitHub Actions mirrors that verification path with mdbook build plus the smoke check under both Clang and GCC.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.