Expert advice on C programming is hard to find. While much help is available for object-oriented programming languages, there's surprisingly little for the C language. With this hands-on guide, beginners and experienced C programmers alike will find guidance about design decisions, including how to apply them bit by bit to running code examples when building large-scale programs.

Christopher Preschern, a leading member of the design patterns community, answers questions such as how to structure C programs, cope with error handling, or design flexible interfaces. Whether you're looking for one particular pattern or an overview of design options for a specific topic, this book shows you how to implement hands-on design knowledge specifically for the C programming language.

You'll find design patterns for:

• Error handling


• Returning error information


• Memory management


• Returning data from C functions


• Data lifetime and ownership


• Flexible APIs


• Flexible iterator interfaces


• Organizing files in modular programs


• Escaping #ifdef Hell