O’Reilly’s Mastering Algorithms in C is a mixture between dictionary and workbook.
Kyle Loudon’s book covers many kinds of algorithm related topics from compression to numerical methods(approximations). He also covers all common data structures.
This book is similar to AI for Game Developers(review here), as it covers a lot of different topics that could each fill books on their own. Loudon made a pretty good job at compacting the topics, it presents one or two basic but already useful algorithms that are used in real programs. These example implementations do a good job at presenting the basics of the topic so that you can read more yourself. Each chapter ends with a FAQ box covering interesting tidbits and a Related Topics chapter with hints about what else exists.
The most exciting part of the book is the accompanying CD. It contains the full source code of each of the implementations discussed in the book. These modules are generic and work with memory pointers instead of data types. This source code is written in plain C, and should work with most compilers. If the malloc and free calls are replaced with MemManager calls, the code should be usable in PODS.
Overall, this book is a good dictionary. The topics are covered in a relatively compact fashion, you can read a chapter independantly of the others. The source code on the CD can be life-saving if you need to meet a deadline. It does not cost much(27$ or less at Amazon’s), so putting it onto your bookshelf preventatively is not a bad idea.
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