C Tutorial

C is the lingua franca of systems programming: the language of UNIX, Linux kernels, embedded devices, and the universal external interface of every other language. Created at Bell Labs by Dennis Ritchie in 1972, it is small, predictable, and unforgiving — and it rewards disciplined engineers with complete control over the machine. This roadmap teaches C honestly: what it does brilliantly, where it hurts, and how modern successors like Zig and Oberon compare.

Scope: Study the lessons in order, compile every example locally with GCC or Clang (gcc -Wall -Wextra -std=c11 file.c -o app), and revisit the index for targeted reference.

C Study Progress

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#	C	Topic	Description
PHASE 1: LANGUAGE FOUNDATIONS
	01	Why C & Thinking in C	Origins, purpose, and an honest look at C compared with Zig and Oberon.
	02	Toolchain & First Program	Install GCC or Clang, compile, lint, and run your first program safely.
	03	Lexical Structure	Punctuation, keywords, comments, statements, and expressions.
	04	Data Types & Conversions	Primitive types, qualifiers, and the implicit/explicit conversion rules.
	05	Arrays, Structs, Unions	Arrays, structs, unions, enums, bit-fields, and typedef.
	06	Pointers & Arrays	Addresses, dereferencing, pointer arithmetic, and pointer-to-pointer.
PHASE 2: PROGRAM EXECUTION
	07	Functions & Scope	Prototypes, recursion, scope, linkage, static, and variadic functions.
	08	Control Flow	Conditionals, loops, break/continue, switch, and goto.
	09	Input & Output	printf/scanf formats, robust text input, and standard file I/O.
PHASE 3: MEMORY & PRECOMPILATION
	10	The Preprocessor	#include, #define, macros and their pitfalls, include guards, #if.
	11	Dynamic Memory	Stack vs heap, malloc/calloc/realloc/free, leaks, and sanitizers.
	12	Error Handling	Return codes, errno, perror/strerror, setjmp/longjmp, and assertions.
	13	Strings	Char arrays vs pointers, NUL termination, and safe string functions.
PHASE 4: DATA STRUCTURES & ALGORITHMS
	14	Data Structures	Linked lists, dynamic arrays, stacks, queues, hash tables, and BSTs.
	15	Algorithms	Sorting, searching, recursion, memoization, and complexity analysis.
PHASE 5: ADVANCED C
	16	Advanced C	Function pointers, callbacks, bit manipulation, endianness, type punning.
	17	Parallel & Multicore	Threads, atomics, mutexes, OpenMP, SIMD, and MPI for the CPU.
	18	GPU Computing	Kernels, memory transfers, and CUDA / OpenCL / SYCL on many-core devices.
	19	ABI & Assembly	Calling conventions, inline asm, C-to-assembly interop, and assembler choices.
PHASE 6: PRACTICE & DEMO
	20	Lab Examples	Run and modify single-file practice demos for every lesson.
	21	Study Projects	Composed mini-projects: linked list, vector library, hash table tool.
PHASE 7: REFERENCE
	22	References & Compilers	Browser playgrounds, official docs, free courses, and sample repos.

Credits: Lesson content drafted with DeepSeek via Fireworks AI. References: free tutorials below.

Free References

For the full categorized table — online C playgrounds, official documentation, courses, and sample repos — see the References & Compilers page.