Unlike standard technical manuals, this book is hilarious. Van der Linden includes "Thinking Outside the Box" puzzles and humorous anecdotes (like the famous "International Obfuscated C Code Contest") that make the dense material a joy to read.
Long before buffer overflows were headline news, van der Linden explained how writing past a stack-based array can corrupt the return address. He provides a simple gets() example that, in 1994, seemed academic—today, it’s the foundation of every security exploit.
Even today, C++ and C programmers wince at complex declarations. Van der Linden provides the "Clockwise/Spiral Rule." For example, what is:
char *(*(*x())[])();
Without the book’s secrets, you would weep. With the book, you know it’s "function returning pointer to array of pointers to function returning pointer to char." expert c programming deep c secrets pdf github
If you find the PDF, pay special attention to three specific sections that are more relevant today than ever:
To understand the demand for the PDF, you must first understand the book's unique value. Unlike The C Programming Language (K&R), which is a gentle introduction, or Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment (Stevens), which is a system reference, van der Linden’s book sits in a terrifying third space: gotchas, compiler internals, and the abyss of undefined behavior.
To satisfy your curiosity immediately, let’s replicate one of Feuer’s most famous puzzles. Unlike standard technical manuals, this book is hilarious
The Question: Why does sizeof(array) give the total bytes, but sizeof(pointer) gives 8 (on 64-bit systems)?
The Secret (Chapter 4):
When you declare char c[] = "deep"; , c is a constant address representing the array. The compiler knows the array's size at compile time.
When you pass c to a function: void func(char *c), the array "decays" into a pointer. Inside the function, the compiler only sees a pointer variable; it has no idea if it points to a single char or an array of 1000.
The Bug:
// File A: extern char *name;
// File B: char name[] = "Secrets";
In File A, the linker resolves name to the address of the array. But the code treats that address as a pointer variable, reads the first 8 bytes of the array as if they were an address, and crashes. Feuer’s explanation, using memory diagrams, remains the definitive walkthrough of this linker issue.
A legitimate question: after 30 years, should you read this book?
Yes—if you write firmware, kernels, databases, or game engines. Long before buffer overflows were headline news, van
No—if you build web apps, normal desktop apps, or ML pipelines. Python, Java, Go, and Rust have memory safety. The "bugs" in this book are designed to be impossible in modern memory-safe languages.