This book has the same practical approach as the previous “Stack Frames: A look from inside” where the reader can find useful information on many of the topics addressed here. By focusing on the main subjects, it reviews some implementation details that are often overlooked or left out when studying the C language for the first time.
This explains why there are so few chapters, which cover only the most important topics of the language and, often, long sections with poorly detailed definitions but rich with examples and tests to be carried out by the reader.
Therefore, the book is addressed mainly to students who have already learned the language and wish to achieve a better understanding of it by observing how the source code is translated by compilers. It's a chance to explore a world so mysterious and exciting, whose importance is often undervalued.
The trouble of looking at the assembly code and comparing it with the C source is amply repaid by the knowledge of how computers work and how to optimize code snippets that are responsible for slowing down the executable, assuming the proper algorithm and optimization options have already been chosen.
The working environment will be a GNU operating system installed on a personal computer with a 64-bit x86 processor. The working tools will be two compilers (gcc, clang) and a debugger (gdb).