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| <h3 class="section">1.1 Getting Started</h3> |
| |
| <p>This manual is written with the assumption that you are at least |
| somewhat familiar with the C programming language and basic programming |
| concepts. Specifically, familiarity with ISO standard C |
| (see <a href="ISO-C.html#ISO-C">ISO C</a>), rather than “traditional” pre-ISO C dialects, is |
| assumed. |
| |
| <p>The GNU C library includes several <dfn>header files</dfn>, each of which |
| provides definitions and declarations for a group of related facilities; |
| this information is used by the C compiler when processing your program. |
| For example, the header file <samp><span class="file">stdio.h</span></samp> declares facilities for |
| performing input and output, and the header file <samp><span class="file">string.h</span></samp> |
| declares string processing utilities. The organization of this manual |
| generally follows the same division as the header files. |
| |
| <p>If you are reading this manual for the first time, you should read all |
| of the introductory material and skim the remaining chapters. There are |
| a <em>lot</em> of functions in the GNU C library and it's not realistic to |
| expect that you will be able to remember exactly <em>how</em> to use each |
| and every one of them. It's more important to become generally familiar |
| with the kinds of facilities that the library provides, so that when you |
| are writing your programs you can recognize <em>when</em> to make use of |
| library functions, and <em>where</em> in this manual you can find more |
| specific information about them. |
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