Suggestions of excellent examples of real C/C++ code [closed]

Answer 1

K&R has many good examples of real programs. For instance, on page 115 of the Second Edition there are two simple implementations of the echo command. From there, it might be interesting to see how the command was implemented over time. For instance, there is a version in the GNU coreutils source. A version derived from BSD can be found in BusyBox source.

It might be interesting to see how the newer versions compare to the textbook examples. Why are the programs that are used in real life longer? How much of the code is related to new features and how much is related to dealing with edge cases? How would you write the same code in Java?

Answer 2

Samba: a large, cross-platform (POSIX-based), pure C, very popular network server.

Samba has good developer documentation, and the code base itself is very well organized; I've had no problems diving into just about any location within the code to answer a question I had about its inner workings or to track down a bug.

Answer 3

As for C++ I would recommend you the Qt library sources and KDE's source code and its programs.

It's beautifully written code and the way that you should program in C++.

Answer 4

Google's Chromium is pretty huge, but you don't have to analyze it all to appreciate its clean, peer-reviewed structure. Also, it's a good example of nicely done developer environment deployment.

Answer 5

I find the implementation of Lua is quite nice C source. But languages are a bit odd as an example project.

Answer 6

I would specifically mention memcached. It's a great example of fairly short, readable code with a clear purpose.

Second, I would recommend the Apache web server. It's a fantastically well-run open source project that you'll learn a lot from, both about the language, as well as general design practices and networking/threading.