C Interfaces and Implementations

Every programmer and software project manager must master the art of creating reusable software modules; they are the building blocks of large, reliable applications. Unlike some modern object-oriented languages, C provides little linguistic support or motivation for creating reusable application programming interfaces (APIs). While most C programmers use APIs and the libraries that implement them in almost every application they write, relatively few programmers create and disseminate new, widely applicable APIs. "C Interfaces and Implementations" shows how to create reusable APIs using interface-based design, a language-independent methodology that separates interfaces from their implementations. This methodology is explained by example. The author describes in detail 24 interfaces and their implementations, providing the reader with a thorough understanding of this design approach.;The features of "C Interfaces and Implementations" are: concise interface descriptions that comprise a reference manual for programmers interested in using the interfaces; a guided tour of the code that implements each chapter's interface to help those modifying or extending an interface or designing related interfaces; in-depth focus on "algorithm engineering" - how to package data structures and related algorithms into reusable modules; source code for 24 APIs and 8 sample applications is examined, with each presented as a "literate program" in which a thorough explanation is interleaved with the source code; and rarely documented C programming tricks-of-the-trade.