C Interfaces and Implementations: Techniques for Creating Reusable Software (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)

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. Features of C Interfaces and Implementations: * Concise interface descriptions that comprise a reference manual for programmers interested in using the interfaces. * A guided tour of the code that implements each chapters interface tp help those modifying or extending an interface or designing related interfaces. * In-depth focus on algorithm engineering: how to packag