ANSI 표준 C 언어에 대한 책으로 C언어 개발자를 위한 두번째 판이다. 이 새로운 버전의 책은 C언어의 풍부한 연산자와 경제적인 표현, 그리고 데이터 구조에 이르기 까지 새로이 추가된 예제를 담고 있다. 이 책은 A Tutorial Introduction, Types, Operators, and expressions, Control Flow, functions and Program Structure, Pointers and Arrays, Structures, Input and Output, The UNIX System Interface등의 내용을 수록하고 있다.

This book is meant to help the reader learn how to program in C. It is the definitive reference guide, now in a second edition. Although the first edition was written in 1978, it continues to be a worldwide best-seller. This second edition brings the classic original up to date to include the ANSI standard.

From the Preface:

We have tried to retain the brevity of the first edition. C is not a big language, and it is not well served by a big book. We have improved the exposition of critical features, such as pointers, that are central to C programming. We have refined the original examples, and have added new examples in several chapters. For instance, the treatment of complicated declarations is augmented by programs that convert declarations into words and vice versa. As before, all examples have been tested directly from the text, which is in machine-readable form.

As we said in the first preface to the first edition, C "wears well as one's experience with it grows." With a decade more experience, we still feel that way. We hope that this book will help you to learn C and use it well.