C Traps and Pitfalls

= is not ==
& and are not && or
Greedy lexical analysis.
Integer constants.
Strings and characters.

Understanding function declarations.
Operators don't always have the precedence you want.
Watch those semicolons!
The switch statement.
Calling functions.
The dangling else problem.

Pointers and arrays.
Pointers are not arrays.
Array declarations as parameters.
Eschew synecdoche.
Null pointers are not null strings.
Counting and asymmetric bounds.
Order of evaluation.
The &&, , and ! operators.
Integer overflow.
Returning a value from main.

What is a linker?
Declarations vs. definitions.
Name conflicts and the static modifier.
Arguments, parameters, and return values.
Checking external types.
Header files.

Getchar returns an integer.
Updating a sequential file.
Buffered output and memory allocation.
Using errno for error detection.
The signal function.

Spaces matter in macro definitions.
Macros are not functions.
Macros are not statements.
Macros are not type definitions.

Coping with change.
What's in a name?
How big is an integer?
Are characters signed or unsigned?
Shift operators.
Memory location zero.
How does division truncate?
How big is a random number?
Case conversion.
Free first, then reallocate?
An example of portability problems.

Advice.
Answers.

The printf family.
Simple format types.
Modifiers.
Flags.
Variable field width and precision.
Neologisms.
Anachronisms.
Variable argument lists with varargs.h.
Implementing varargs.h.
stdarg.h: the ANSI varargs.h. 0201179288T04062001