Editorial Review

Written with the intermediate to advanced C programmer in mind, Read more

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Reviews (12)

good, concise algorithm book ruined by comment
compare to most algorithm/data structure books out there, this book is not as complete as those, but it's much easier to read, and diagrams in this book is well drawn and much eaiser to follow. Why would I only give it 3 stars? One thing really ruined this book - obviously the publisher/editor/author try to increase the total page number by putting ridiculously big comment block in sample code(single line comments takes about 5 lines, all surrounded by '*' and spaces) This made the sample code difficult to read, imagine a 5 line function has to be printed in 2 or 3 pages.

Good book, but HORRIBLE CODING STYLE!!!
The book contents is good, the algorithms presented are more or less well explained and the implementeations themselves are not bad (but could be better).
Not worth your time or money
To be fair and honest, I have not read this entire book and that is because I've read far better ones.If you are interested in this topic (and if you're a programmer or computer scientist, you should be), look to Robert Sedgewick's excellent "Algorithms in C" in two volumes, or "Mastering Algoritms" by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein.While the algorithms in Cormen, etc.'s book are not in C, they are in a pseudo language that easy to convert to C.I'm really, really glad I looked this book over before flushing my (limited) money away. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. C (Computer program language)    2. C (Programming Language)    3. Computer Books And Software    4. Computer algorithms    5. Computers    6. Computers - Languages / Programming    7. Data structures (Computer scie    8. Data structures (Computer science)    9. Programming Languages - C    10. C & Visual C    11. C programming, languages    12. Computers / Languages / Programming    13. Computers / Programming Languages / C   

Reviews (18)

SedgeWork
If you purchase this book as I did then be prepared to expend quite a lot of energy to derive any useful learning from this text.I am in full agreement with many of the other reviewers here as to the quality of this book.And I am not just referring to the numerous glaring typos and off-by-one errors but what seems to be a fundamental inability of this author to be able to explain himself in a clear, coherent manner.I do not expect the quality or caliber of say a "Richard Stevens", on every technical publication but this work is below par from what one would expect from a "professor".I have read many technical books over the years, on protocols, programming languages and data structures and algorithms.Reading through the text, and for books like this, compiling and running the examples, is par for the course.You learn by doing not just by reading alone.But a balance should be maintained.
I'm fed up with these books
I bought these two book for one reason: to get help implementing algorithms. Since there is lot of code in these books, I thought this would be a good pick. I was wrong. The author is consistently leaving out details vital to understanding the code. He also makes a big deal about abstract data types. This is gloriously of the case. If the readers are supposed to understand the code, transperency would be a more intelligent goal for the author. There are no comments in the code what so ever (yes, this is actually true, not even in the on-line code). The on-line code to this book is a total mess. You would be able to implement all the algorithms from scratch in less time than it would take you to try an piece together the code the author has left for you. The pity is that there are very few other algorithm books that have real code.
why someone give the book 5 star?
this is the first algorithms book i read, this is last robert sedgewick book i read. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Algorithms (Computer Programming)    2. C (Computer language)    3. C (Computer program language)    4. C (Programming Language)    5. Computer Books: Languages    6. Computer Science    7. Computer algorithms    8. Computer programming    9. Computers    10. Computers - Languages / Programming    11. Programming Languages - C    12. C & Visual C    13. Computers / Programming / Algorithms    14. Mathematical theory of computation   

Reviews (16)

Above average breath
Many of the criticisms here are justified, but IMHO there are no good DS&A books. I have Binstock's book and it has lots of errors, although code listings on the website that I tried to compile did finally work, the stuff on the disk didn't. Sedgwick's stuff is about as muddled in C as this book is. Knuth is still wedded to his own private assembly language and a half a dozen others I own are so unremarkable I won't mention them.
Very good book but not for beginners
If you don't have good knowledge about C then this book will be confuse beacuse this book is about DS and NOT about C programming. Certainly it use some C/C++ to write implementations of DS but not for teach C/C++. If you really know C then you can buy it. In my case it was a very good book and I get very good knowledge about DS.
Brand new book as said. Very nice seller.
Received book in timely manner and in very good condition. Good seller. Fast. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. C (Computer program language)    2. C (Programming Language)    3. C++ (Computer program language    4. C++ (Computer program language)    5. Computer Books: Languages    6. Computer Science    7. Computers    8. Computers - Data Base Management    9. Data Structures    10. Data structures (Computer scie    11. Data structures (Computer science)    12. Database Management - General    13. Programming - Algorithms    14. Programming Languages - General    15. C & Visual C    16. Computers / Programming / Algorithms    17. Databases & data structures   

Reviews (4)

I'm fed up with these books
I bought these two book for one reason: to get help implementing algorithms. Since there is lot of code in these books, I thought this would be a good pick. I was wrong. The author is consistently leaving out details vital to understanding the code. He also makes a big deal about abstract data types. This is gloriously of the case. If the readers are supposed to understand the code, transperency would be a more intelligent goal for the author. There are no comments in the code what so ever (yes, this is actually true, not even in the on-line code). The on-line code to this book is a total mess. You would be able to implement all the algorithms from scratch in less time than it would take you to try an piece together the code the author has left for you.
Best of the bunch
I had to teach this subject and this book seemed the best of the bunch though still not ideal. Why does the author have to use meaningless variable names (i,j,k), do comments make the code run more slowly. My main criticism is the examples and I would recommend the author use professional coding practices, comment the code, use meaningful variable names and structure it for readability. Else recommended for this subject

The best book for beginners
Sedgewick's 'Algorithms in C' is undeniably the best book for beginners studying about algorithms and data structures. The text is clear, lucid, and the programming examples are very well documented. The exercises and problems stimulate thoughts and help in developing a better understanding of the subject. All the key aspects of the subject are sufficiently addressed, and discussed in the best possible way. It's the code in the book that I love the most, it can be compiled on almost any compiler without almost any change being made to it. I would strongly recommend this book as a textbook to all beginners embarking on a study of data structures and algorithms. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Science    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Programming - General    6. Programming Languages - C    7. C & Visual C    8. Computers / Programming / Algorithms   

Reviews (4)

Excellent figures, average analysis
This is a great book for the reader interested in learning a collection of graph algorithms. Though the C code isn't very clear, the text makes up for it with concise well-written explanations. And the figures do an excellent job of illustrating the execution of the algorithms.
I'm fed up with these books
I bought these two book for one reason: to get help implementing algorithms. Since there is lot of code in these books, I thought this would be a good pick. I was wrong. The author is consistently leaving out details vital to understanding the code. He also makes a big deal about abstract data types. This is gloriously of the case. If the readers are supposed to understand the code, transperency would be a more intelligent goal for the author. There are no comments in the code what so ever (yes, this is actually true, not even in the on-line code). The on-line code to this book is a total mess. You would be able to implement all the algorithms from scratch in less time than it would take you to try and piece together the code the author has left for you.
Better then no book about graph algorithms.
Robert Sedgewick is certainly well known to all people involved in the development of algorithms form different fields as an author of a number of books about algorithmic methods and data structures. And I am sure that we all appreciate this work because one simply needs all the time a reference to look up not only how one can solve a probem algorithmic but also how one can do this in an efficient way.
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Subjects:  1. C (Computer language)    2. C (Computer program language)    3. Computer Bks - Languages / Programming    4. Computer Books: General    5. Computer algorithms    6. Computer programming    7. Computers    8. Computers - Languages / Programming    9. General    10. Programming - General    11. Programming Languages - C    12. C & Visual C    13. Computers / Programming / Algorithms    14. Databases & data structures   

Reviews (6)

collates useful computational geometric algorithms
If you are perhaps a graphics or robotics programmer, then you will often have need for computing various geometric forms. And the intersections of these forms. Rather than derive algorithms from scratch, you might want to first look here. O'Rourke has collated several useful sets of methods. Germane to two and three dimenions.
Nice balance of theory with code
This book was pleasantly surprising:I had expected to see code presented with minimal motivation or discussion of the underlying ideas -- something of a "Computational Geometry for Dummies" sort of book.That's not the case at all.This is a bona fide textbook on the subject, suitable for an undergraduate course. Very hepful
Anyone who is involved in areas such as computer graphics, computational radiology, robot vision, or visualization software should have a copy of this book. The author has done a fine job of introducing the most important algorithms in computational geometry, choosing the C language for their implementation. The choice of C might be somewhat dated now, since C++ is now beginning to dominate computational geometry, but readers who are actually programming these algorithms using C++ can easily extend the ones in the book to C++. Not all of the algorithms in the book are implemented into C, unfortunately, but the clarity of presentation is done well enough to make this implementation a fairly straightforward task. My interest in the book came from a need to design and implement algorithms for polyhedra in VRML and toric varieties in algebraic geometry. This book, along with others, was a great help in that regard. The running time of these algorithms was not really an issue with me, so the detail the author spends on discussing the complexity of the algorithms was not a concern. Readers who need to pay attention to running-time issues will appreciate his discussion of them for the algorithms that are presented. Read more

Subjects:  1. C (Computer program language)    2. Data processing    3. Geometry    4. Geometry - General    5. Mathematics    6. Programming Languages - C    7. Science/Mathematics    8. Algorithms & procedures    9. C & Visual C    10. Computers / General    11. Geometry--Data processing   

Reviews (1)

My teacher at MIT lectured right out of this book!
This book is clearly written and really explains the *theory* behind what is going on.Lermanuses examples everywhere that really helpbring the abstract notions of programming down to earth.It's a great book for those just learning C, and a decent book for those who are already familiar withC but have a little more to learn. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Algorithms    2. Computer Books: Languages    3. Computers    4. Data processing    5. Engineering    6. Engineering - General    7. Problem solving    8. Programming Languages - C    9. Science    10. Science (General)    11. Technology & Industrial Arts    12. Technology (General)    13. C & Visual C    14. Computers / Programming Languages / C    15. Mathematical theory of computation    16. Mathematics for scientists & engineers   

Reviews (9)

Really Nice Book with a couple of flaws
I really like this book. It gave me a jump start on image processing and it's good for anyone immersed in the field to find a quick solution to a particular algorithm they're looking for, get a good glimpse at how they're doing it and put it to code. However, there are a couple of flaws:
Excellent cookbook of image processing algorithms
This book is excellent if you use it as intended - to lift working C code for the implementation of a variety of image processing algorithms. There are even algorithms for computer vision techniques such as circularity, compactness, and finding the minimum or maximum axis. This book assumes that you already know how to program in C and that you are already familiar with the theory of image processing as it was never intended to be a textbook on either of these subjects. However, this does not mean that this cookbook is devoid of theory. Each transform contains a short description of its purpose, a before and after image showing its effect, a paragraph describing the algorithm, and then the C code that performs the transform. Some reviewers have complained about the C code, but to me it was commented well enough that I have been able to easily translate several of the algorithms into Java for an application I have been writing. Depending on the complexity of the transform there may also be a diagram or an equation included. The algorithms are laid out in alphabetical order, so as to be convenient for quick look-up. It is true that the code assumes in most cases that the input image is a 256 level gray scale image, but then if the reader is familiar with image processing it should be easy to extend any of these transforms to color images. Where this book is weakest and most shows its age is in the class of transformations labeled "storage formats". For the image types the user is still most likely to encounter- GIF, JPEG, and TIF- the book only shows routines that tell you how to determine if the file is or isn't one of these types. Details on decoding or encoding these image types is beyond the scope of the book. The book does include details for PC Paintbrush and MacPaint formats. However, these simple image storage formats are no longer commonly used. I don't think that this one weakness negates the usefulness of this book for the vast majority of readers.

Useful, full of stuff, but old and in some cases wrong...
Plusses: lots of algorithms, good pseudo-code for implementing them, very easy to find stuff.
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Subjects:  1. C (Computer program language)    2. C (Programming Language)    3. Computer algorithms    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Digital Image Processing    6. Digital techniques    7. Engineering - Electrical & Electronic    8. Image processing    9. Imaging Systems    10. Programming - General    11. Programming Languages - General    12. Science/Mathematics    13. Technology    14. Applied optics    15. Optics (light)    16. Technology / Engineering / Electrical   

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Reviews (2)

small book, but packs a big punch!
After finishing this course for our 2nd semester in CS, covering data structures, I was taken back by how much this book has in it. I totally did not expect to see so much inside a book this small when I first glanced at it the day I received it.
Excellent introduction to data structures using K&R C
This was the book that made things click for me.It has a nice introduction to pointers and memory management using malloc(), then goes on to show how to implement stacks, queues, singly-linked lists, doubly-linked lists, circular lists, trees, and graphs.The example applications include a tiny line-oriented text editor (like UNIX's ed or DOS's edlin) and a lisp interpreter.Read more

Subjects:  1. C (Computer program language)    2. C (Programming Language)    3. Computer Books: Languages    4. Computer Books: Operating Systems    5. Computers    6. Computers - Languages / Programming    7. Data Structures    8. Data structures (Computer scie    9. Data structures (Computer science)    10. Programming - Algorithms    11. Programming Languages - General    12. Computers / Programming / Algorithms    13. Databases & data structures    14. Programming languages   

Reviews (3)

Interesting for students
Within this book, various algorithms can be found. The algorithms are implemented on various DSPs (TI C3x',AD 21xxx and etc) as well. Would be a great reference for students working on their DSP projects.

a stimulating book
C Algorithms for Real-Time DSP, by Paul Embree, is a stimulating book. When I finished reading it, I went straight to my workstation and started experimenting with DSP algorithms. Embree clearly knows this subject andpresents it in a straightforward manner. This is a refreshing change fromthe academic approach taken by the seven digital-signal processing bookscurrently on my bookshelf. Not that Embree doesn't reference some heavymath. C Algorithms for Real-Time DSP is not for the mathematically weak ofheart. To feel comfortable with the book, you should be familiar with time-and frequency-domain math as well as filter terminology&emdash;topicsEmbree reviews in the first part of the book. Reading this section remindedme of how my entire high-school education was summarized in my first weekof college.

it's a very poor-written book.
This book's title and topics sounds very attractive. Unfortunately, it hasnothing more than like a reference card!! The content need more detailpresentation and analysis to give readers something valuable. A book withonly about 200 pages of headlines sale for more than $70, this isabsolutely ridiculous!! The worst book in my colletion. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. C (Computer program language)    2. C (Programming Language)    3. Computer Books: Operating Systems    4. Computer algorithms    5. Computers - Languages / Programming    6. Discrete Mathematics    7. Programming Languages - General    8. Real-Time Data Processing    9. Telecommunications    10. C & Visual C    11. Communications engineering / telecommunications    12. Image processing    13. Mathematical theory of computation    14. Signal processing    15. Technology / Engineering / Electrical   

Features

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Reviews (4)

Excellent book
Excellent book, full of code and best of all, full with good examples; very important in this topic that is often cover merely as ADT. Stacks, queues, list, trees, everything is covered here. The chapter about trees is specially detailed, and topics like sorting and searching are covered in a separated chapter. I lost mine some time ago, and I did not hesitate to buy it again.

If you would study Data Structures...
..this book is very easy to read... and there are very very exercices to help in the learning, also the topics of structures data is sufficentvast! This is a very good book
If you are interested in trees (Binary Search,Generic & Multiway ) & Graphs this book could be a very good reference. Common Data Structures are also dealt with very nicely. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. C (Computer program language)    2. C (Programming Language)    3. Computer Books: Languages    4. Computer Books: Operating Systems    5. Computers    6. Computers - Languages / Programming    7. Data structures (Computer scie    8. Data structures (Computer science)    9. Programming - Algorithms    10. Programming Languages - C    11. Computers / Programming / Algorithms    12. Machine macro & assembly languages   

Reviews (29)

Concepts explained well.
I thought that this book did its job in explaining the data structures under consideration effectively, but I did not like the author's coding style, and this is nothing more than taste.The book's goal is the teaching of data structures and it did this.Overall, though, this book is a good reference.

This is a great book.Made for REAL programmers.
I had the luxury of having Dr. Weiss at Florida International University. He was a great professor and as a result I bought this book expecting a great book. The book turned out to be better than expected.
Poorly Written, No Answers to Exercises, Avoid purchase.
Another drab computer science book written by someone who likes to complicate the obvious and oversimplify the complicated.
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Subjects:  1. C (Computer program language)    2. C (Programming Language)    3. Computer Books: Languages    4. Computer Science    5. Computer algorithms    6. Computers    7. Computers - Languages / Programming    8. Data Structures    9. Data structures (Computer scie    10. Data structures (Computer science)    11. Database Management - General    12. Programming Languages - C    13. C & Visual C    14. Computers / Programming / Algorithms    15. Databases & data structures    16. Mathematical theory of computation   

Reviews (1)

An excellent reference for the professional
Both this book and the preceding (smaller) edition have earned their place on my reference shelf.More up to date than Knuth's 2nd edition and covering much broader territory than (for example) Samet's D&A of Spatial Data Structures, I've found a number of algorithms and data structures in this text that have been directly applicable to my work as a systems programmer. Read more

Subjects:  1. Algorithms (Computer Programming)    2. C (Computer program language)    3. Computer Books: Languages    4. Computer algorithms    5. Data Structures    6. Data structures (Computer scie    7. General    8. Pascal (Computer program langu    9. Pascal (Computer program language)    10. Programming Languages - General    11. Technology & Industrial Arts    12. C & Visual C    13. Databases & data structures    14. Mathematical theory of computation    15. Pascal & Turbo Pascal   

Editorial Review

In a surprisingly lively textbook-style treatment, Read more

Reviews (33)

Great book.
I believe this book is a great introduction to algorithms and data structures. It's so clear and well-written that you can actually sit down and read it just for fun.
Decent Book on Data Structures
I just finished an online course on data structures at UMass, Lowell (secured an A grade without any problem) and this is the textbook used for this course. I agree with some of the comments made by the reviewers here - that typedef's are used beyond reason, code is presented in fragments. I must strongly disagree with the reviewers who said - the book is not worth the money (it's cheap if you buy a used one), it is a bad book, useful only as a paper weight. The strong plus point for this book is that it presents theory well - there are many figures using which it is easy to understand complicated stuff. The other plus point is that it also analyzes the performance of algorithms and I felt the book does a great job of explaining this part in clear terms. The main drawback is that the code is fragmented and spread out, which is certainly frustating. Also, in order to get the code to work on a compiler (I used Microsoft VC++ version 6), you will need to "fill in the gaps" as most code examples (I tried 90% of the examples in the text on MVC++ compiler) are by no means complete but this was not difficult. You can download the code from the publisher's website and the code is actually not organized into different files (sorted by chapter and example) but it comes in a few files where examples from different chapters are mixed. You will have to search and find the part you need. I do agree usage of dummy functions creates confusion. This book has a rocky start with the life game example, which was not very easy to follow with the explanation provided. While I was frustated with the first two chapters, the rest of the chapters are presented well. To the reviewer who said that the code has bugs (which certainly isn't true), my guess that the gaps are not properly filled. I patiently tested most of the code on the computer (after filling in the gaps of course!) and find absolutely no problems with it. This however took lot of time since significant effort is needed from the student to fill the missing code to make it work. I have supplied working code to my fellow students who were facing difficulties in getting the code to run. In a couple of places in the text, the author surprised me with C syntax I did not know was legal (I consider myself intermediate programmer).
Excellent book.
This is a great book! I don't know why other reviewers are so aggravated with it, but I find it to be one of the clearest and ideally arranged books on data structures that are out there. It is also useful to mention that the great illustrations relaxed my eyes and worked a great deal on strengthening the point, making sure I understood the concept behind the algorithm. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. C (Computer program language)    2. C (Programming Language)    3. Computer Books: General    4. Computer Science    5. Computers    6. Computers - Languages / Programming    7. Data Structures    8. Programming Languages - C    9. C & Visual C    10. Computers / Programming / Algorithms    11. Databases & data structures    12. Software engineering    13. Systems analysis & design   

Reviews (8)

So, you want to be a Software Engineer?
This is a serious textbook for those who want to learn software engineering, not a cookbook how-to guide. Standish provides a clear, detailed exposition of the core principles, with enough depth to lay the groundwork for advanced studies.
Terrific!Withstanding the test of time..
This is a terrific textbook for readers in the software development field utilizing C.It covers the foundation of data structures, C programming language, and software algorithms quite extensively.Presently, the textbook is 10 years old and it is not obsolete yet.I think it should be relevant for the next decade or so.
Don't bother with this book
Although this books claims to be a book for a second course in computer science, I disagree completely. Although it does have excellent diagrammatical representations of the underlying theory and concepts behind the data structures presented in the book, the explanations are extremely lacking. It is more of a discussion among computer scientists who already understand the concepts presented, as it just touches on a few points and leaves the rest our completely. I am using this book for a Data Structures class (which happens to be the second computer science course offered at my university) and it really has been a painful experience. The problem is that it will show you small pieces of the code needed to implement the data structures, and discusses them in general, but it doesn't give you enough to use if you don't quite understand and want to play around with some simple code until you do. I have had to either use code provided by my professor, or have gone online to find random course websites with a simple implementation of a particular data structure. It seems that, as an introduction to data structures, it fails; and if you already understand the material you would follow the book, but if you already understand it, you wouldn't be reading the book anyway. Skip this book! I wish I had another one to recommend in its place, but I haven't been able to find one. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. C (Computer program language)    2. C (Programming Language)    3. Computer Books: Languages    4. Computer Science    5. Computer algorithms    6. Computers    7. Computers - General Information    8. Data structures (Computer scie    9. Data structures (Computer science)    10. Programming - Algorithms    11. Programming Languages - General    12. Software engineering    13. C & Visual C    14. Computers / Programming / Algorithms    15. Databases & data structures   

Reviews (6)

Developmental history and some examples of Code
This book, is one of the few computer books I have read from cover to cover - code listings are easy to scan/skip, and the book itself is not huge (however the cost seems fairly high for the size).
Lacking substance and focus
I work in a field where memory management is absolutely critical and was greatly looking forward to this book greatly. However it turned out to be a massive disappointment. The title is memory management, algorithms and implementations. However, the algorithms don't even really start until the last third of the book, and when they do, they are overly simple, and barely touch on the theory or critical characteristics behind the algorithms. This book is filled with useless tangents, some of the most random of which involving microkernal versus monolithic kernal, scanning of faces at the Super Bowl, and instructions for setting the 80x line of chips from real to protected mode! This book presents no practically useful algorithms, as all of the handling of cases such as growing the memory block are left as 'excercises for the reader' as are performance improvments even though final performance is essential in order to be able to properly compare and contrast the algorithms. Nuts and Bolts Perspective
While a lot of books on computer memory end up abstracting their discussion somehow, Blunden's book lies at the opposite end of the spectrum. All aspects of computer memory are examined (hardware level, OS level, application level) and in each instance concrete, non-trivial, examples are presented. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is left to the imagination. This book is nothing short of an exhaustive look at memory management. Engineers interested in this traditionally neglected topic should buy this book!Read more

Subjects:  1. C (Computer program language)    2. C++ (Computer program language    3. Computer Books: Languages    4. Computer algorithms    5. Computers - Languages / Programming    6. Memory management (Computer sc    7. Memory management (Computer science)    8. Programming - Algorithms    9. Programming Languages - C++    10. C & Visual C    11. Computer Software Packages    12. Computers / Programming Languages / C++   

Subjects:  1. Algorithms (Computer Programming)    2. Computer Bks - General Information    3. Computer algorithms    4. Computer programming    5. Data Structures    6. Data structures (Computer scie    7. Data structures (Computer science)    8. General    9. Questions & Answers   

Subjects:  1. Algorithms (Computer Programming)    2. C (Computer program language)    3. Computer Bks - Languages / Programming    4. Computer Books: Operating Systems    5. Computer Mathematics    6. Computer algorithms    7. Programming Languages - General