Edition 4.

The GNU C Programming Tutorial

Mark Burgess Faculty of Engineering, Oslo College Ron Hale-Evans

Copyright c 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; there being no Invariant Section, with the Front-Cover Texts being A GNU Manual, and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License. (a) The FSFs Back-Cover Text is: You have freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development.

Preface

xi

Preface
This book is a tutorial for the computer programming language C. Unlike BASIC or Pascal, C was not written as a teaching aid, but as a professional tool. Programmers love C! Moreover, C is a standard, widely-used language, and a single C program can often be made to run on many dierent kinds of computer. As Richard M. Stallman remarks in GNU Coding Standards, Using another language is like using a non-standard feature: it will cause trouble for users. (See http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards_toc.html.) Skeptics have said that everything that can go wrong in C, does. True, it can be unforgiving, and holds some diculties that are not obvious at rst, but that is because it does not withhold its powerful capabilities from the beginner. If you have come to C seeking a powerful language for writing everyday computer programs, you will not be disappointed. To get the most from this book, you should have some basic computer literacy you should be able to run a program, edit a text le, and so on. You should also have access to a computer running a GNU system such as GNU/Linux. (For more information on GNU and the philosophy of free software, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/.) The tutorial introduces basic ideas in a logical order and progresses steadily. You do not need to follow the order of the chapters rigorously, but if you are a beginner to C, it is recommended that you do. Later, you can return to this book and copy C code from it; the many examples range from tiny programs that illustrate the use of one simple feature, to complete applications that ll several pages. Along the way, there are also brief discussions of the philosophy behind C. Computer languages have been around so long that some jargon has developed. You should not ignore this jargon entirely, because it is the language that programmers speak. Jargon is explained wherever necessary, but kept to a minimum. There is also a glossary at the back of the book. The authors of this book hope you will learn everything you need to write simple C programs from this book. Further, it is released under the GNU Free Documentation License, so as the computers and robots in the fantasies of Douglas Adams say, Share and Enjoy!

The rst edition of this book was written in 1987, then updated and rewritten in 1999. It was originally published by Dabs Press. After it went out of print, David Atherton of Dabs and the original author, Mark Burgess, agreed to release the manuscript. At the request of the Free Software Foundation, the book was further revised by Ron Hale-Evans in 2001 and 2002. The current edition is written in Texinfo, which is a documentation system using a single source le to produce both online information and printed output. You can read this tutorial online with either the Emacs Info reader, the stand-alone Info reader, or a World Wide Web browser, or you can read it as a printed book.

The advantages of C

1 Introduction
What is a high-level language? Why is C unusual? Any suciently complex object has levels of detail; the amount of detail we see depends on how closely we scrutinize the object. A computer has many levels of detail. The terms low level and high level are often used to describe these layers of complexity in computers. The low level is buried in the computers microchips and microcircuits. The low level is the level at which the computer seems most primitive and mechanical, whereas the high level describes the computer in less detail, and makes it easier to use. You can see high levels and low levels in the workings of a car. In a car, the nuts, bolts, and pistons of the low level can be grouped together conceptually to form the higher-level engine. Without knowing anything about the nuts and bolts, you can treat the engine as a black box: a simple unit that behaves in predictable ways. At an even higher level (the one most people use when driving), you can see a car as a group of these black boxes, including the engine, the steering, the brakes, and so on. At a high level, a computer also becomes a group of black boxes. C is a high-level language. The aim of any high-level computer language is to provide an easy, natural way to give a list of instructions (a computer program) to a computer. The native language of the computer is a stream of numbers called machine language. As you might expect, the action resulting from a single machine language instruction is very primitive, and many thousands of them can be required to do something substantial. A high-level language provides a set of instructions you can recombine creatively and give to the imaginary black boxes of the computer. The high-level language software will then translate these high-level instructions into low-level machine language instructions.

1.1 The advantages of C

C is one of a large number of high-level languages designed for general-purpose programming, in other words, for writing anything from small programs for personal amusement to complex industrial applications. C has many advantages: Before C, machine-language programmers criticized high-level languages because, with their black box approach, they shielded the user from the working details of the computer and all its facilities. C, however, was designed to give access to any level of the computer down to raw machine language, and because of this, it is perhaps the most exible high-level language. C has features that allow the programmer to organize programs in a clear, easy, logical way. For example, C allows meaningful names for variables without any loss of eciency, yet it gives a complete freedom of programming style, including exible ways of making decisions, and a set of exible commands for performing tasks repetitively (for, while, do).

Chapter 1: Introduction

C is succinct. It permits the creation of tidy, compact programs. This feature can be a mixed blessing, however, and the C programmer must balance simplicity and readability. C allows commands that are invalid in other languages. This is no defect, but a powerful freedom which, when used with caution, makes many things possible. It does mean that there are concealed diculties in C, but if you write carefully and thoughtfully, you can create fast, ecient programs. With C, you can use every resource your computer oers. C tries to link closely with the local environment, providing facilities for gaining access to common peripherals like disk drives and printers. When new peripherals are invented, the GNU community quickly provides the ability to program them in C as well. In fact, most of the GNU project is written in C (as are many other operating systems). For the reasons outlined above, C is the preeminent high-level language. Clearly, no language can guarantee good programs, but C can provide a framework in which it is easy to program well.

1.2 Questions for Chapter 1

1. Explain the distinction between high levels and low levels. 2. What is a black box? 3. Name a few advantages to programming in the C language.

The compiler

2 Using a compiler
How to use a compiler. What can go wrong. The operating system is the layer of software that drives the hardware of a computer and provides the user with a comfortable work environment. Operating systems vary, but most have a shell, or text interface. You use the GNU shell every time you type in a command that launches an email program or text editor under GNU. In the following sections of this chapter, we will explore how to create a C program from the GNU shell, and what might go wrong when you do.

2.1 Basic ideas about C

First a note about a programming language that is dierent from the C programming language, the GNU shell. When you enter commands in the GNU shell, they are executed immediately. Moreover, the shell is a programming language, in that the commands you type are a program, because you can also create a text le containing many shell commands. When you run this le, the commands will be executed in sequence. On the other hand, consider C. While a shell command le can be executed directly, a C program must be created in two stages: 1. First, the program is written in the form of text les with a text editor such as GNU Emacs. This form of the program is called the source code. A computer cannot execute source code directly. 2. Second, the completed source code is processed with a compiler a program that generates a new le containing a machine-language translation of the source code. This le is called an executable le, or executable. The executable le is said to have been compiled from the source code. To run the compiled program, you must usually type the name of the executable le preceded by a period and a slash, as in this example: ./myprogram The dot-slash prex tells the GNU shell to look in the current directory for the executable. You usually do not need to type ./ in front of commands for programs that came with your GNU system, such as emacs, because the computer already knows where to look for the executables of those programs, which were placed in special directories when your GNU system was installed. A C program is made up of, among other components, variables and functions. A variable is a way to hold some data which may vary, hence the name. For example, a variable might hold the number 17, and later the number 41. Another variable might hold the word Sue. A function is a segment of text in the source code of a program that tells the computer what to do. Programming consists, in large part, of writing functions.

Chapter 2: Using a compiler

2.2 The compiler

When you compile a program, the compiler usually operates in an orderly sequence of phases called passes. The sequence happens approximately like this: 1. First, the compiler reads the source code, perhaps generating an intermediate code (such as pseudo-code) that simplies the source code for subsequent processing. 2. Next, the compiler converts the intermediate code (if there is any) or the original source code into an object code le, which contains machine language but is not yet executable. The compiler builds a separate object le for each source le. These are only temporary and are deleted by the compiler after compilation. 3. Finally, the compiler runs a linker. The linker merges the newly-created object code with some standard, built-in object code to produce an executable le that can stand alone. GNU environments use a simple command to invoke the C compiler: gcc, which stands for GNU Compiler Collection. (It used to stand for GNU C Compiler, but now GCC can compile many more languages than just C.) Thus, to compile a small program, you will usually type something like the following command: gcc le name On GNU systems, this results in the creation of an executable program with the default name a.out. To tell the compiler you would like the executable program to be called something else, use the -o option for setting the name of the object code: gcc -o program name le name For example, to create a program called myprog from a le called myprog.c, write gcc -o myprog myprog.c To launch the resulting program myprog from the same directory, type ./myprog

2.3 File names

GCC uses the following le name conventions: Source code le Object le Executable le Header le Library le program name.c program name.o program name (no ending) name.h libname.a or libname.so

The le name endings, or le extensions, identify the contents of les to the compiler. For example, the .c sux tells the compiler that the le contains C source code, and the other letters indicate other kinds of les in a similar way.

Errors

2.4 Errors
Errors are mistakes that programmers make in their code. There are two main kinds of errors. Compile-time errors are errors caught by the compiler. They can be syntax errors, such as typing fro instead of for, or they can be errors caused by the incorrect construction of your program. For example, you might tell the compiler that a certain variable is an integer, then attempt to give it a non-integer value such as 5.23. (See Section 2.4.2 [Type errors], page 6.) The compiler lists all compile-time errors at once, with the line number at which each error occurred in the source code, and a message that explains what went wrong. For example, suppose that, in your le eg.c you write y = sin (x]; instead of y = sin (x); (By the way, this is an example of assignment. With the equals sign (=), you are assigning the variable y (causing the variable y to contain) the sine of the variable x. This is somewhat dierent from the way equals signs work in mathematics. In math, an equals sign indicates that the numbers and variables on either side of it are already equal; in C, an equals sign makes things equal. Sometimes it is useful to think of the equals sign as an abbreviation for the phrase becomes the value of.) Ignore the syntactic details of the statements above for now, except to note that closing the (x) with a square bracket instead of a parenthesis is an error in C. Upon compilation, you will see something like this error message: error eg.c: In function main: eg.c:8: parse error before ] (If you compile the program within Emacs, you can jump directly to the error. We will discuss this feature later. See Chapter 23 [Debugging], page 231, for more information.) A program with compile-time errors will cause the compiler to halt, and will not produce an executable. However, the compiler will check the syntax up to the last line of your source code before stopping, and it is common for a single real error, even something as simple as a missing parenthesis, to result in a huge and confusing list of nonexistent errors from the compiler. This can be shocking and disheartening to novices, but youll get used to it with experience. (We will provide an example later in the book. See Chapter 23 [Debugging], page 231.) As a rule, the best way to approach this kind of problem is to look for the rst error, x that, and then recompile. You will soon come to recognize when subsequent error messages are due to independent problems and when they are due to a cascade. Run-time errors are errors that occur in a compiled and running program, sometimes long after it has been compiled. One kind of run-time error happens when you write a running program that does not do what you intend. For example, you intend to send a letter to all drivers whose

Chapter 2: Using a compiler

licenses will expire in June, but instead, you send a letter to all drivers whose licenses will ever expire. Another kind of run-time error can cause your program to crash, or quit abruptly. For example, you may tell the computer to examine a part of its memory that doesnt exist, or to divide some variable by zero. Fortunately, the GNU environment is extremely stable, and very little will occur other than an error message in your terminal window when you crash a program you are writing under GNU. If the compilation of a program is successful, then a new executable le is created. When a programmer wishes to make alterations and corrections to a C program, these must be made in the source code, using a text editor; after making the changes, the programmer must recompile the program, or its salient parts.

2.4.1 Typographical errors

The compiler can sometimes fail for very simple reasons, such as typographical errors, including the misuse of upper- and lower-case characters. The C language is case-sensitive. Unlike languages such as Pascal and some versions of BASIC, C distinguishes between upper- and lower-case letters, such as A and a. If a letter is typed in the wrong case in a critical place in the source code, compilation will fail. This is a potential source of errors that are dicult to nd.

2.4.2 Type errors

C supports a variety of variable types (dierent kinds of variables for dierent kinds of data), such as integer for integer numbers, and float for numbers with fractional parts. You can even dene your own types, such as total for a sum, or surname for someones last name. You can also convert a variable of one type into other types. (This is called type coercion.) Consequently, the type of a variable is of great importance to the compiler. C requires us to list the names and types of all variables that will be used in a program, and provide information about where they are going to be used. This is called declaring variables. If you fail to declare a variable, or use it as if it were a dierent type from the type it is declared to be, for example, by assigning a non-integer value to an integer variable, you will receive a compile-time error. See Chapter 5 [Variables and declarations], page 19, for more information on variable declarations. See Chapter 3 [The form of a C program], page 9, for some simple examples of variable declarations.

2.5 Questions for Chapter 2

1. What is a compiler? 2. How does one run a C program?

Questions for Chapter 2

3. 4. 5. 6.

How does one usually compile a C program? Are upper and lower case equivalent in C? What the two main kinds of error that can occur in a program? If you had some C source code that you wished to call accounts, under what name would you save it? 7. What would be the name of the executable le for the program in the last question? 8. How would you run this program?

Chapter 2: Using a compiler

A word about style

3 The form of a C program

What goes into a C program? What does one look like? The basic building block of a C program is the function. Every C program is a collection of one or more functions. Functions are made of variable declarations and statements, or complex commands, and are surrounded by curly brackets ({ and }). One and only one of the functions in a program must have the name main. This function is always the starting point of a C program, so the simplest C program is a single function denition: main () { } The parentheses () that follow the name of the function must be included. This is how C distinguishes functions from ordinary variables. The function main does not need to be at the top of a program, so a C program does not necessarily start at line 1, but wherever the function called main is located. The function main cannot be called, or started, by any other function in the program. Only the operating system can call main; this is how a C program is started. The next most simple C program is perhaps a program that starts, calls a function that does nothing, and then ends. /******************************************************/ /* */ /* Program : do nothing */ /* */ /******************************************************/ main() { do_nothing(); } /* Main program */

/******************************************************/ do_nothing() /* Function called */ { } (Any text sandwiched between /* and */ in C code is a comment for other humans to read. See the section on comments below for more information.) There are several things to notice about this program. First, this program consists of two functions, one of which calls the other. Second, the function do_nothing is called by simply typing the main part of its name followed by () parentheses and a semicolon. Third, the semicolon is vital; every simple statement in C ends with one. This is a signal to the compiler that the end of a statement has been reached and that anything that follows is part of another statement. This signal helps the compiler diagnose errors.

10

Chapter 3: The form of a C program

Fourth, the curly bracket characters { and } outline a block of statements. When this program meets the closing } of the second functions block, it transfers control back to main, where it meets another }, and the program ends.

3.1 A word about style

The code examples above are simple, but they illustrate the control ow of a C program, or the order in which its statements are executed. You should note that these programs are written in old-fashioned C, as the language existed before ANSI Standard C the version in which most C programs are now written. The above programs are also missing several key elements that most C programs have, such as header les and function prototypes. Finally, they do not show good style; if you wish to submit programs you write to the Free Software Foundation, you should consult its advice on how best to use the C language. You may wonder why we chose old-style C for these rst few examples, even though people proverbially learn best what they learn rst. We did so because pre-ANSI C is considerably simpler than the present form, and also because as you develop as a C programmer, you will probably run across some old C code that you will want to read. You may also wonder why a savvy programmer would want to follow the ANSI Standard, which was drafted by committee, or even the GNU guidelines. Isnt programming free software all about freedom? Yes, but following the ANSI Standard ensures that your code can be easily compiled on many other computer platforms, and the GNU guidelines ensure that your code can be read by other programmers. (We will introduce good C style in our examples soon. Meanwhile, you can examine the GNU guidelines later in the book. See Chapter 22 [Style], page 227.)

3.2 Comments

Annotating programs.

Comments are a way of inserting remarks and reminders into code without aecting its behavior. Since comments are only read by other humans, you can put anything you wish to in a comment, but it is better to be informative than humorous. The compiler ignores comments, treating them as though they were whitespace (blank characters, such as spaces, tabs, or carriage returns), and they are consequently ignored. During compilation, comments are simply stripped out of the code, so programs can contain any number of comments without losing speed. Because a comment is treated as whitespace, it can be placed anywhere whitespace is valid, even in the middle of a statement. (Such a practice can make your code dicult to read, however.) Any text sandwiched between /* and */ in C code is a comment. Here is an example of a C comment:

Questions for Chapter 3

11

/* ...... comment ......*/ Comments do not necessarily terminate at the end of a line, only with the characters */. If you forget to close a comment with the characters */, the compiler will display an unterminated comment error when you try to compile your code.

3.3 Example 1
#include <stdio.h> main () { /* This little line has no effect */ /* This little line has none */ /* This little line went all the way down to the next line, And so on... And so on... And so on... */ do_little(); printf ("Function main completing.\n"); } /**********************************************/ /* A bar like the one above can be used to */ /* separate functions visibly in a program */ /* header file */

/* Trivial program */

do_little () { /* This function does little. */ printf ("Function do_little completing.\n"); } Again, this example is old-fashioned C, and in mediocre style. To make it more compliant with the ANSI Standard and GNU guidelines, we would declare the variable type each function returns (int for main, which also requires an exit or return statement), and we would create function prototypes at the beginning of the le. (See Chapter 4 [Functions], page 13.)

3.4 Questions for Chapter 3

12

Chapter 3: The form of a C program

1. What is a block? 2. Does a C program start at the beginning? Where is the beginning? 3. What happens when a program comes to a } character? What does this character signify? 4. What vital piece of punctuation goes at the end of every simple C statement? 5. What happens if a comment is not ended? That is if the programmer types /* .. to start but forgets the ..*/ to close?

Function examples

13

4 Functions
Solving problems and getting results. A function is a section of program code that performs a particular task. Making functions is a way of isolating one section of code from other independent sections. Functions allow a programmer to separate code by its purpose, and make a section of code reusable that is, make it so the section can be called in many dierent contexts. Functions should be written in the following form: type function name (type parameter1 name, type parameter2 name, ...) { variable declarations statements ... ... ... } You may notice when reading the examples in this chapter that this format is somewhat dierent from the one we have used so far. This format conforms to the ANSI Standard and is better C. The other way is old-fashioned C, although GCC will still compile it. Nevertheless, GCC is not guaranteed to do so in the future, and we will use ANSI Standard C in this text from now on. As shown above, a function can have a number of parameters, or pieces of information from outside, and the functions body consists of a number of declarations and statements, enclosed by curly brackets: {...}.

4.1 Function names

Every function has a name by which it is known to the rest of the program. The name of a function in C can be anything from a single letter to a long word. The ANSI Standard, however, only guarantees that C will be able to distinguish the rst 31 letters of identiers, or function and variable names. (Identiers are therefore said to have 31 signicant characters.) In some cases, identiers may have as few as six signicant characters, to stay compatible with older linkers, but this part of the ANSI Standard is becoming obsolete. A function name must begin with an alphabetic letter or the underscore _ character, but the other characters in the name can be chosen from the following groups: Any lower-case letter from a to z Any upper-case letter from A to Z Any digit from 0 to 9 The underscore character _ Note that with GCC, you can also use dollar signs ($) in identiers. This is one of GCCs extensions to the C language, and is not part of the ANSI standard. It also may not be supported under GCC on certain hardware platforms.

14

Chapter 4: Functions

4.2 Function examples

Here is an example of a function that adds two integers and prints the sum with Cs print formatted function named printf, using the characters %d to specify integer output. void add_two_numbers (int a, int b) /* Add a and b */ { int c; c = a + b; printf ("%d\n", c); } The variables a and b are parameters passed in from outside the function. The code denes a, b, and c to be of type int, or integer. The function above is not much use standing alone. Here is a main function that calls the add_two_numbers function: int main() { int var1, var2; var1 = 1; var2 = 53; add_two_numbers (var1, var2); add_two_numbers (1, 2); exit(0); } When these functions are incorporated into a C program, together they print the number 54, then they print the number 3, and then they stop.

4.3 Functions with values

In mathematics, a function takes one or more values and calculates, or returns, another value. In C, some functions return values and others do not; whether a function you write does or does not will depend on what you want the function to do. For example, a function that calculates a value should probably return that value, while a function that merely prints something out may not need to. The add_two_numbers function above did not return a value. We will now examine a function that does. Here is an example of calling a function that returns a value: bill = calculate_bill (data1, data2, data3); When this statement is executed, control is passed to the function calculate_bill, that function executes, and then it returns control and some value to the original statement. The value returned is assigned to bill, and the program continues.

Function prototyping

15

In C, returning a value from a function is a simple matter. Consider the function calculate_bill as it might be written in a program that contains the statement above: int calculate_bill (int a, int b, int c) { int total; total = a + b + c; return total; } As soon as the return statement is met, calculate_bill stops executing and returns the value total. A function that returns a value must have a return statement. Forgetting it can ruin a program. For instance if calculate_bill had read as follows, then the variable bill would have had no meaningful value assigned to it, and you might have received a warning from the compiler as well. (The word void below indicates that the function does not return a value. In ANSI C, you must place it before the name of any such function.) void calculate_bill (int a, int b, int c) { int total; total = a + b + c; } On the other hand, you do not need to actually use a value when a function returns one. For example, the C input/output functions printf and scanf return values, but the values are rarely used. See undened [les], page undened , for more information on these functions. If we use the rst version of the calculate_bill function (the one that contains the line return total;), the value of the function can simply be discarded. (Of course, the resulting program is not very useful, since it never displays a value to the user!) int main() { calculate_bill (1, 2, 3); exit (0); }

4.4 Function prototyping

Functions do not have to return integer values, as in the above examples, but can return almost any type of value, including oating point and character values. (See Chapter 5 [Variables and declarations], page 19, for more information on variable types.) A function must be declared to return a certain variable type (such as an integer), just as variables must be. (See Chapter 5 [Variables and declarations], page 19, for more information about variable types.) To write code in good C style, you should declare what type of value a function returns (and what type of parameters it accepts) in two places:

16

Chapter 4: Functions

1. At the beginning of the program, in global scope. (See Chapter 6 [Scope], page 27.) 2. In the denition of the function itself. Function declarations at the beginning of a program are called prototypes. Here is an example of a program in which prototypes are used: #include <stdio.h> void print_stuff (int foo, int bar); int calc_value (int bas, int quux);

void print_stuff (int foo, int bar) { int var_to_print; var_to_print = calc_value (foo, bar); printf ("var_to_print = %d\n", var_to_print); }

int calc_value (int bas, int quux) { return bas * quux; }

int main() { print_stuff (23, 5); exit (0); } The above program will print the text var_to_print = 115 and then quit. Prototypes may seem to be a nuisance, but they overcome a problem intrinsic to compilers, which is that they compile functions as they come upon them. Without function prototypes, you usually cannot write code that calls a function before the function itself is dened in the program. If you place prototypes for your functions in a header le, however, you can call the functions from any source code le that includes the header. This is one reason C is considered to be such a exible programming language. Some compilers avoid the use of prototypes by making a rst pass just to see what functions are there, and a second pass to do the work, but this takes about twice as long. Programmers already hate the time compilers take, and do not want to use compilers that make unnecessary passes on their source code, making prototypes a necessity. Also, prototypes enable the C compiler to do more rigorous error checking, and that saves an enormous amount of time and grief.

4.5 The exit function

Questions for Chapter 4

17

GNU coding standards specify that you should always use exit (or return) within your main function. (See Chapter 22 [Style], page 227.) You can use the exit function to terminate a program at any point, no matter how many function calls have been made. Before it terminates the program, it calls a number of other functions that perform tidy-up duties such as closing open les. exit is called with a return code, like this: exit(0); In the example above, the return code is 0. Any program that calls your program can read the return code from your program. The return code is like a return value from another function that is not main; in fact, most of the time you can use the return command within your main, instead of exit. Conventionally, a return code of 0 species that your program has ended normally and all is well. (You can remember this as zero errors, although for technical reasons, you cannot use the number of errors your program found as the return code. See Chapter 22 [Style], page 227.) A return code other than 0 indicates that some sort of error has occurred. If your code terminates when it encounters an error, use exit, and specify a non-zero return code.

4.6 Questions for Chapter 4

1. Write a function that takes two values a and b, then returns the value of a * b (that is, a times b.) 2. Is there anything wrong with a function that returns no value? 3. What happens if a function returns a value but you do not assign that value to anything? 4. What happens if a variable is assigned the result of a function, but the function does not return a value? 5. How can you make a program terminate, anywhere in the program?

18

Chapter 4: Functions

Integer variables

19

5 Variables and declarations

Storing data. Discriminating types. Declaring data. Variable names in C follow the same rules as function names, as far as what characters they can contain. (See Section 4.1 [Function names], page 13.) Variables work dierently from functions, however. Every variable in C has a data type, or type, that conveys to the the compiler what sort of data will be stored in it. Functions in C are sometimes said to have types, but a functions type is actually the data type of the variable it returns. In some older computer languages like BASIC, and even some newer ones like Perl, you can tell what type a variable is because its name begins or ends with a special character. For example, in many versions of BASIC, all integer variable names end with a percent sign (%) for example, YEAR%. No such convention exists in C. Instead, we declare variables, or tell the compiler that they are of a certain type, before they are used. This feature of C has the following advantages (among others): It gives a compiler precise information about the amount of memory that will have to be allotted to a variable when a program is run, and what sort of arithmetic will have to be used with it (e.g. integer, oating point, or none at all). It provides the compiler with a list of the variables so that it can catch errors in the code, such as assigning a string to an integer variable. There are a lot of variable types in C. In fact, you can dene your own, but there are some basic types ready for use. We will discuss them in the following sections.

5.1 Integer variables

C has ve kinds of integer. An integer is a whole number (a number without a fractional part). In C, there are a limited number of integers possible; how many depends on the type of integer. In arithmetic, you can have as large a number as you like, but C integer types always have a largest (and smallest) possible number. char: A single byte, usually one ASCII character. (See the section on the char type below.) short: A short integer (16 bits long on most GNU systems). Also called short int. Rarely used. int: A standard integer (32 bits long on most GNU systems). long: A long integer (32 bits long on most GNU systems, the same as int). Also called long int. long long: A long long integer (64 bits long on most GNU systems). Also called long long int. 64-bit operating systems are now appearing in which long integers are 64 bits long. With GCC, long integers are normally 32 bits long and long long integers are 64 bits long, but it varies with the computer hardware and implementation of GCC, so check your systems documentation.

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Chapter 5: Variables and declarations

These integer types dier in the size of the integer they can hold and the amount of storage required for them. The sizes of these variables depend on the hardware and operating system of the computer. On a typical 32-bit GNU system, the sizes of the integer types are as follows. Type Bits Possible Values char unsigned char short unsigned short int unsigned int long unsigned long long long unsigned long long 8 8 16 16 32 32 32 32 64 64 -127 to 127 0 to 255 -32,767 to 32,767 0 to 65,535 -2,147,483,647 to 2,147,483,647 0 to 4,294,967,295 -2,147,483,647 to 2,147,483,647 0 to 4,294,967,295 -9,223,372,036,854,775,807 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615

On some computers, the lowest possible value may be 1 less than shown here; for example, the smallest possible short may be -32,768 rather than -32,767. The word unsigned, when placed in front of integer types, means that only positive or zero values can be used in that variable (i.e. it cannot have a minus sign). The advantage is that larger numbers can then be stored in the same variable. The ANSI standard also allows the word signed to be placed before an integer, to indicate the opposite of unsigned.

5.1.1 The char type

char is a special integer type designed for storing single characters. The integer value of a char corresponds to an ASCII character. For example, a value of 65 corresponds to the letter A, 66 corresponds to B, 67 to C, and so on. As in the table above, unsigned char permits values from 0 to 255, and signed char permits values from -127 (or -128) to 127. The char type is signed by default on some computers, but unsigned on others. (See Appendix E [Character conversion table], page 259. See Appendix D [Special characters], page 257.) char is used only within arrays; variables meant to hold one character should be declared int. (See Chapter 15 [Strings], page 105, for more information on character arrays. See Section 5.4.1 [Cast operator demo], page 23, for an example of how to use an integer variable to hold a character value.)

5.1.2 Floating point variables

Declarations

21

Floating point numbers are numbers with a decimal point. There are dierent sizes of oating point numbers in C. The float type can contain large oating point numbers with a small degree of precision, but the double-precision double type can hold even larger numbers with a higher degree of precision. (Precision is simply the number of decimal places to which a number can be computed with accuracy. If a number can be computed to ve decimal places, it is said to have ve signicant digits.) All oating point mathematical functions built into C require double or long float arguments (long float variables are generally the same as double variables on GNU systems), so it is common to use float only for storage of small oating point numbers, and to use double everywhere else. Here are the oating point variable types available in C: float: A single-precision oating point number, with at least 6 signicant decimal digits. double: A double-precision oating point number. Usually the same as long float on GNU systems. Has at least 10 signicant decimal digits. long double: Usually the same as double on GNU systems, but may be a 128-bit number in some cases. On a typical 32-bit GNU system, the sizes of the dierent oating point types are as follows. Type Bits Possible values (approx.) float double long double 32 64 64 1e-38 to 1e+38 2e-308 to 1e+308 2e-308 to 1e+308

You may nd the gures in the right-hand column confusing. They use a form of shorthand for large numbers. For example, the number 5e2 means 5 102, or 500. 5e-2 means 5 10 2 (5/100, or 1/20). You can see, therefore, that the float, double, and long double types can contain some very large and very small numbers indeed. (When you work with large and small numbers in C, you will use this notation in your code.)

5.2 Declarations
To declare a variable, write the type followed by a list of variables of that type: type name variable name 1, ..., variable name n; For example: int last_year, cur_year; long double earth_mass, mars_mass, venus_mass; unsigned int num_pets;

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Chapter 5: Variables and declarations

long city_pop, state_pop; state_pop = city_pop = 5000000; short moon_landing = 1969; float temp1 temp2 temp3 temp1, temp2, temp3; = 98.6; = 98.7; = 98.5;

double bignum, smallnum; bignum = 2.36e208; smallnum = 3.2e-300; Always declare your variables. A compiler will catch a missing declaration every time and terminate compilation, complaining bitterly. (You will often see a host of error messages, one for each use of the undeclared variable. See Chapter 23 [Debugging], page 231.)

5.3 Initialization
Assigning a variable its rst value is called initializing the variable. When you declare a variable in C, you can also initialize it at the same time. This is no more ecient in terms of a running program than doing it in two stages, but sometimes creates tidier and more compact code. Consider the following: int initial_year; float percent_complete; initial_year = 1969; percent_complete = 89.5; The code above is equivalent to the code below, but the code below is more compact. int initial_year = 1969; float percent_complete = 89.5; You can always write declarations and initializers this way, but you may not always want to. (See Chapter 22 [Style], page 227.)

5.4 The cast operator

An operator is a symbol or string of C characters used as a function. One very valuable operator in C is the cast operator, which converts one type into another. Its general form is as follows: (type) variable For example, oating point and integer types can be interconverted: float exact_length; int rough_length;

Cast operator demo

23

exact_length = 3.37; rough_length = (int) exact_length; In the example above, the cast operator rounds the number down when converting it from a oat to an integer, because an integer number cannot represent the fractional part after the decimal point. Note that C always truncates, or rounds down, a number when converting it to an integer. For example, both 3.1 and 3.9 are truncated to 3 when C is converting them to integer values. The cast operator works the other way around, too: float exact_length; int rough_length; rough_length = 12; exact_length = (float) rough_length; In converting large integers to oating point numbers, you may lose some precision, since the float type guarantees only 6 signicant digits, and the double type guarantees only 10. It does not always make sense to convert types. (See Chapter 20 [Data structures], page 205, for examples of types that do not convert to other types well.)

5.4.1 Cast operator demo

The following is an example of how to use the cast operator in C code. It also shows how to use an integer variable to store a character value. /***************************************************/ /* */ /* Demo of Cast operator */ /* */ /***************************************************/ #include <stdio.h> int main() { float my_float; int my_int; int my_ch; /* Use int float and int */

my_float = 75.345; my_int = (int) my_float; my_ch = (int) my_float; printf ("Convert from float my_float=%f to my_int=%d and my_ch=%c\n", my_float, my_int, my_ch); my_int = 69; my_float = (float) my_int; my_ch = my_int;

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Chapter 5: Variables and declarations

printf ("Convert from int my_int=%d to my_float=%f and my_ch=%c\n", my_int, my_float, my_ch); my_ch = *; my_int = my_ch; my_float = (float) my_ch; printf ("Convert from int my_ch=%c to my_int=%d and my_float=%f\n", my_ch, my_int, my_float); exit(0); } Here is the sort of output you should expect (oating point values may dier slightly): Convert from float my_float=75.345001 to my_int=75 and my_ch=K Convert from int my_int=69 to my_float=69.000000 and my_ch=E Convert from int my_ch=* to my_int=42 and my_float=42.000000

5.5 Storage classes

There are a few variable declaration keywords commonly used in C that do not specify variable types, but a related concept called storage classes. Two common examples of storage class speciers are the keywords extern and static.

5.5.1 External variables

Sometimes the source code for a C program is contained in more than one text le. If this is the case, then it may be necessary to use variables that are dened in another le. You can use a global variable in les other than the one in which it is dened by redeclaring it, prexed by the extern specier, in the other les. File main.c File secondary.c #include <stdio.h> int my_var; int main() { extern int my_var; my_var = 500; print_value(); exit (0);

void print_value() { printf("my_var = %d\n", my_var); }

} In this example, the variable my_var is created in the le secondary.c, assigned a value in the le main.c, and printed out in the function print_value, which is dened in the le secondary.c, but called from the le main.c. See Section 17.4 [Compiling multiple les], page 172, for information on how to compile a program whose source code is split among multiple les. For this example, you can

Questions for Chapter 5

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simply type the command gcc -o testprog main.c secondary.c, and run the program with ./testprog.

5.5.2 Static variables

A second important storage class specier is static. Normally, when you call a function, all its local variables are reinitialized each time the function is called. This means that their values change between function calls. Static variables, however, maintain their value between function calls. Every global variable is dened as static automatically. (Roughly speaking, functions anywhere in a program can refer to a global variable; in contrast, a function can only refer to a local variable that is nearby, where nearby is dened in a specic manner. See Chapter 6 [Scope], page 27, for more information on global variables. See Chapter 7 [Expressions and operators], page 31, for an example of a static local variable.)

5.5.3 Other storage classes

There are three more storage class identiers in C: auto, register, and typedef. auto is the opposite of static. It is redundant, but is included in contemporary versions of C for backwards compatibility. All local variables are auto by default. register is another outdated C storage class. Dening a variable as register used to store it in one of the computers registers, a specic location on its processor chip, thereby making code using that variable run faster. These days, most C compilers (including GCC) are smart enough to optimize the code (make it faster and more compact) without the register keyword. typedef allows you to dene your own variable types. See Chapter 19 [More data types], page 197, for more information.

5.6 Questions for Chapter 5

1. What is an identier? 2. Which of the following are valid C variable names? 1. Ralph23 2. 80shillings 3. mission_control 4. A% 5. A$ 6. _off 3. Write a statement to declare two integers called start_temperature and end_ temperature. 4. What is the dierence between the types float and double?

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Chapter 5: Variables and declarations

What is the dierence between the types int and unsigned int? Write a statement that assigns the value 1066 to the integer variable norman. What data type do C functions return by default? You must declare the data type a function returns at two places in a program. Where? Write a statement, using the cast operator, to print out the integer part of the number 23.1256. 10. Is it possible to have an automatic global variable?

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Global Variables

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6 Scope
Where a programs ngers can and cant reach. Imagine that a function is a building with a person (Fred) standing in the doorway. This person can see certain things: other people and other buildings, out in the open. But Fred cannot see certain other things, such as the people inside the other buildings. Just so, some variables in a C program, like the people standing outside, are visible to nearly every other part of the program (these are called global variables), while other variables, like the people indoors, are hidden behind the brick walls of curly brackets (these are called local variables). Where a variable is visible to other C code is called the scope of that variable. There are two main kinds of scope, global and local, which stem from the two kinds of places in which you can declare a variable: 1. Global scope is outside all of the functions, that is, in the space between function denitions after the #include lines, for example. Variables declared in global scope are called global variables. Global variables can be used in any function, as well as in any block within that function. #include <stdio.h> int global_integer; float global_floating_point; int main () { exit (0); } 2. You can also declare variables immediately following the opening bracket ({) of any block of code. This area is called local scope, and variables declared here are called local variables. A local variable is visible within its own block and the ones that block contains, but invisible outside its own block. #include <stdio.h> int main() { int foo; float bar, bas, quux; exit (0); }

6.1 Global Variables

Global variables can be used in any function, as well as any block within that function. (Technically, global variables can only be seen by functions that are dened after the dec-

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Chapter 6: Scope

laration of those global variables, but global variables are usually declared in a header le that is included everywhere they are needed.) Global variables are created when a program is started and are not destroyed until a program is stopped.

6.2 Local Variables

Local variables, on the other hand, are only visible within local scope. They are trapped inside their code blocks. Just as global scope contains many functions, however, each function can contain many code blocks (dened with curly brackets: {...}). C allows blocks within blocks, even functions within functions, ad innitum. A local variable is visible within its own block and the ones that block contains, but invisible outside its own block. int a; /* Global scope. Global variable a is visible here, but not local variables b or c. */ int main() { int b; /* Local scope of main. Variables a and b are visible here, but not c. */ { int c; /* Local scope of {...} block within main. Variables a, b, and c are all visible here. */ } exit (0); } Local variables are not visible outside their curly brackets. To use an existence rather than a visibility metaphor, local variables are created when the opening brace is met, and they are destroyed when the closing brace is met. (Do not take this too literally; they are not created and destroyed in your C source code, but internally to the computer, when you run the program.)

6.3 Communication via parameters

If no code inside a function could ever communicate with other parts of the program, then functions would not be very useful. Functions would be isolated, comatose, unable to do much of anything. Fortunately, although local variables are invisible outside their code

Questions for Chapter 6

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blocks, they can still communicate with other functions via parameters. See Chapter 7 [Expressions and operators], page 31, the next chapter, for information on parameters.

6.4 Scope example

Notice that there are two variables named my_var in the example below, both visible in the same place. When two or more variables visible in one area of code have the same name, the last variable to be dened takes priority. (Technically adept readers will realize that this is because it was the last one onto the variable stack.) /***************************************************************/ /* */ /* SCOPE */ /* */ /***************************************************************/ #include <stdio.h> int main () { int my_var = 3; { int my_var = 5; printf ("my_var=%d\n", my_var); } printf ("my_var=%d\n", my_var); exit(0); } When you run this example, it will print out the following text: my_var=5 my_var=3

6.5 Questions for Chapter 6

1. 2. 3. 4. What is a global variable? What is a local variable? Do parameters spoil functions by leaking the variables into other functions? Write a program gnoahs_park that declares 4 variables. Two global integer variables called num_gnus and num_gnats, and two local oating point variables within the function main, called avg_gnu_mass, and avg_gnat_mass. Then add another function called calculate_park_biomass, and pass avg_gnu_mass and avg_gnat_mass to it. How many dierent storage spaces are used when this program runs? (Hint: are avg_ gnu_mass and avg_gnat_mass and their copies the same?)

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The assignment operator

31

7 Expressions and operators

Thinking in C. Short strings of code. An operator is a character or string of characters used as a built-in function. We have already experimented with one operator in C: the cast operator. An operator is so called because it takes one or more values and operates on them to produce a result. For example, the addition operator + can operate on the values 4 and 5 to produce the result 9. Such a procedure is called an operation, and any value operated on (such as 4 and 5 in this example) is called an operand. There are many operators in C. Some of them are familiar, such as the addition operator + and subtraction operator -. Most operators can be thought of as belonging to one of three groups, according to what they do with their operands: Mathematical operators, such as the addition operator + in 100 + 500, or the multiplication operator * in 12 * 2. Comparison operators (a subset of mathematical operators), such as the less-than operator < and the greater-than operator >. Operators that produce new variable types, such as the cast operator. The majority of operators fall into the rst group. The second group is a subset of the rst set; in this second set, the result of an operation is a Boolean value (a value of either true or false). C has about forty dierent operators. The chief object of this chapter is to explain the basic operators in C. We will examine more complex operators in another chapter. (See Chapter 18 [Advanced operators], page 185.)

7.1 The assignment operator

No operator such as addition (+) or multiplication (*) would be useful without another operator that attaches the values they produce to variables. Thus, the assignment operator = is perhaps the most important mathematical operator. We have seen the assignment operator already in our code examples. Here is an example to refresh your memory: int gnu_count, gnat_count, critter_count; gnu_count = 45; gnat_count = 5678; critter_count = gnu_count + gnat_count; The assignment operator takes the value of whatever is on the right-hand side of the = symbol and puts it into the variable on the left-hand side. For example, the code sample above assigns the value 45 to the variable gnu_count.

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Something that can be assigned to is called an lvalue, (l for left, because it can appear on the left side of an assignment). You will sometimes see the word lvalue in error messages from the compiler. For example, try to compile a program containing the following code: 5 = 2 + 3; You will receive an error such as the following: error bad_example.c:3: invalid lvalue in assignment You cant assign a value to 5; it has its own value already! In other words, 5 is not an lvalue.

7.1.1 Important note about assignment

Many people confuse the assignment operator (=) with the equality operator (==), and this is a major source of bugs in C programs. Because of early arithmetic training, people tend to think of = as indicating equality, but in C it means takes on the value produced by, and it should always be read that way. By way of contrast, == is an equality test operator and should always be read is tested for equality with. (See Section 7.8 [Comparisons and logic], page 37, for more information on the == operator.)

7.2 Expressions and values

The most common operators in any language are basic arithmetic operators. In C, these include the following:

+ + * / / %

unary plus, example: +5 unary minus, example: -5 addition, example: 2 + 2 subtraction, example: 14 - 7 multiplication, example: 3 * 3 oating point division, example: 10.195 / 2.4 integer division div, example: 5 / 2 integer remainder mod, example: 24 % 7

Expressions

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7.3 Expressions
An expression is simply a string of operators, variables, numbers, or some combination, that can be parsed by the compiler. All of the following are expressions: 19 1 + 2 + 3 my_var my_var + some_function() (my_var + 4 * (some_function() + 2)) 32 * circumference / 3.14 day_of_month % 7 Here is an example of some arithmetic expressions in C: #include <stdio.h> int main () { int my_int; printf ("Arithmetic Operators:\n\n"); my_int = 6; printf ("my_int = %d, -my_int = %d\n", my_int, -my_int); printf ("int 1 + 2 = %d\n", 1 + 2); printf ("int 5 - 1 = %d\n", 5 - 1); printf ("int 5 * 2 = %d\n", 5 * 2); printf ("\n9 div 4 = 2 remainder 1:\n"); printf ("int 9 / 4 = %d\n", 9 / 4); printf ("int 9 % 4 = %d\n", 9 % 4); printf ("double 9 / 4 = %f\n", 9.0 / 4.0); return 0; } The program above produces the output below: Arithmetic Operators: my_int = 6, -my_int = -6 int 1 + 2 = 3 int 5 - 1 = 4

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int 5 * 2 = 10 9 div 4 = 2 remainder 1: int 9 / 4 = 2 int 9 % 4 = 1 double 9 / 4 = 2.250000

7.4 Parentheses and Priority

Just as in algebra, the C compiler considers operators to have certain priorities, and evaluates, or parses, some operators before others. The order in which operators are evaluated is called operator precedence or the order of operations. You can think of some operators as stronger than others. The stronger ones will always be evaluated rst; otherwise, expressions are evaluated from left to right. For example, since the multiplication operator * has a higher priority than the addition operator + and is therefore evaluated rst, the following expression will always evaluate to 10 rather than 18: 4 + 2 * 3 However, as in algebra, you can use parentheses to force the program to evaluate the expression to 18: (4 + 2) * 3 The parentheses force the expression (4 + 2) to be evaluated rst. Placing parentheses around 2 * 3, however, would have no eect. Parentheses are classed as operators by the compiler; they have a value, in the sense that they assume the value of whatever is inside them. For example, the value of (5 + 5) is 10.

7.5 Unary Operator Precedence

Unary operators are operators that have only a single operand that is, they operate on only one object. The following are (or can be) all unary operators: ++ -- + The order of evaluation of unary operators is from right to left, so an expression like: *ptr++; would perform the ++ before the *. (The ++ operator will be introduced in the next section, and the * operator will be introduced in the next chapter. See Chapter 9 [Pointers], page 47.)

7.6 Special Assignment Operators ++ and -C has some special operators that can simplify code. The simplest of these are the increment and decrement operators:

More Special Assignments

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++ --

increment: add one to decrement: subtract one from

You can use these with any integer or oating point variable (or a character in some cases, carefully). They simply add or subtract 1 from a variable. The following three statements are equivalent: variable = variable + 1; variable++; ++variable; So are these three: variable = variable - 1; variable--; --variable; Notice that the ++ and -- operators can be placed before or after the variable. In the cases above, the two forms work identically, but there is actually a subtle dierence. (See Section 18.1.2 [Postx and prex ++ and ], page 187, for more information.)

7.7 More Special Assignments

Like ++ and --, the following operators are short ways of writing longer expressions. Consider the following statement: variable = variable + 23; In C, this would be a long-winded way of adding 23 to variable. It could be done more simply with the general increment operator +=, as in this example: variable += 23; This performs exactly the same operation. Similarly, the following two statements are equivalent: variable1 = variable1 + variable2; variable1 += variable2; There are a handful of these operators. For example, one for subtraction: variable = variable - 42; variable -= 42; More surprisingly, perhaps, there is one for multiplication: variable = variable * 2; variable *= 2; The main arithmetic operators all follow this pattern: += -= *= /= %= addition assignment operator subtraction assignment operator multiplication assignment operator division assignment operator (oating point and integers) remainder assignment operator (integers only)

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Chapter 7: Expressions and operators

There are more exotic kinds too, used for machine-level operations, which we will ignore for the moment. (See Chapter 18 [Advanced operators], page 185, if you want to know more.) Here is a short program that demonstrates these special assignment operators: #include <stdio.h> int main() { int my_int; printf ("Assignment Operators:\n\n"); my_int = 10; printf ("my_int = 10 : %d\n",my_int); my_int++; printf ("my_int++ /* Assignment */

/* my_int = my_int + 1 */ : %d\n",my_int); /* my_int = my_int + 5 */

my_int += 5; printf ("my_int += 5 : %d\n",my_int); my_int--; printf ("my_int--

/* my_int = my_int = 1 */ : %d\n",my_int); /* my_int = my_int - 2 */

my_int -= 2; printf ("my_int -= 2 : %d\n",my_int); my_int *= 5; printf ("my_int *= 5 : %d\n",my_int); my_int /= 2; printf ("my_int /= 2 : %d\n",my_int);

/* my_int = my_int * 5 */

/* my_int = my_int / 2 */

my_int %= 3; /* my_int = my_int % 3 */ printf ("my_int %%= 3 : %d\n",my_int); return 0; } The program above produces the output below: Assignment Operators: my_int = 10 my_int++ my_int += 5 my_int-my_int -= 2 my_int *= 5 my_int /= 2 : : : : : : : 10 11 16 15 13 65 32

Comparisons and logic

37

my_int %= 3 : 2 The second to last line of output is my_int /= 2 : 32 In this example, 65 divided by 2 using the /= operator results in 32, not 32.5. This is because both operands, 65 and 2, are integers, type int, and when /= operates on two integers, it produces an integer result. This example only uses integer values, since that is how the numbers are declared. To get the fractional answer, you would have had to declare the three numbers involved as oats. The last line of output is my_int %= 3 : 2 This is because 32 divided by 3 is 10 with a remainder of 2.

7.8 Comparisons and logic

Comparison operators tell you how numerical values relate to one another, such as whether they are equal to one another, or whether one is greater than the other. Comparison operators are used in logical tests, such as if statements. (See Chapter 10 [Decisions], page 55.) The results of a logical comparison are always either true (1) or false (0). In computer programming jargon, true and false are the two Boolean values. Note that, unlike real life, there are no gray areas in C; just as in Aristotelian logic, a comparison operator will never produce a value other than true or false. Six operators in C are used to make logical comparisons: == != > < >= <= is equal to is not equal to is greater than is less than is greater than or equal to is less than or equal to

Important: Remember that many people confuse the equality operator (==) with the assignment operator (=), and this is a major source of bugs in C programs. (See Section 7.2 [Expressions and values], page 32, for more information on the distinction between the == and = operators.) The operators above result in values, much as the addition operator + does. They produce Boolean values: true and false only. Actually, C uses 1 for true and 0 for false when evaluating expressions containing comparison operators, but it is easy to dene the strings TRUE and FALSE as macros, and they may well already be dened in a library le you are using. (See Chapter 12 [Preprocessor directives], page 73, for information on dening macros.)

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Chapter 7: Expressions and operators

#define TRUE 1 #define FALSE 0 Note that although any non-zero value in C is treated as true, you do not need to worry about a comparison evaluating to anything other than 1 or 0. Try the following short program: #include <stdio.h> int main () { int truth, falsehood; truth = (2 + 2 == 4); falsehood = (2 + 2 == 5); printf("truth is %d\n", truth); printf("falsehood is %d\n", falsehood); exit (0); } You should receive the following result: truth is 1 falsehood is 0

7.9 Logical operators

Comparisons are often made in pairs or groups. For example, you might want to ask a question such as, Is variable a greater than variable b and is variable b greater than variable c? The word and in the question above is represented in C by the logical operator (an operator on Boolean values) &&, and the whole comparison above might be represented by the following expression: (a > b) && (b > c) The main logical operators in C are as follows: && || ! logical AND logical Inclusive OR (See Section 7.9.1 [Inclusive OR], page 38.) logical NOT

Here is another example. The question, Is the variable a greater than the variable b, or is the variable a not greater than the variable c? might be written: (a > b) || !(a > c)

7.9.1 Inclusive OR
Note well! Shakespeare might have been disappointed that, whatever the value of a variable to_be, the result of

Questions for Chapter 7

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to_be || !to_be (i.e. To be, or not to be?) is always 1, or true. This is because one or the other of to_be or !to_be must always be true, and as long as one side of an OR || expression is true, the whole expression is true.

7.10 Questions for Chapter 7

1. What is an operand? 2. Write a short statement that assigns the remainder of 5 divided by 2 to a variable called remainder and prints it out. 3. Write a statement that subtracts -5 from 10.

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Chapter 7: Expressions and operators

Parameters

41

8 Parameters
Ways in and out of functions. Parameters are the main way in C to transfer, or pass, information from function to function. Consider a call to our old friend calculate_bill: total = calculate_bill (20, 35, 28); We are passing 20, 35, and 28 as parameters to calculate_bill so that it can add them together and return the sum. When you pass information to a function with parameters, in some cases the information can go only one way, and the function returns only a single value (such as total in the above snippet of code). In other cases, the information in the parameters can go both ways; that is, the function called can alter the information in the parameters it is passed. The former technique (passing information only one way) is called passing parameters by value in computer programming jargon, and the latter technique (passing information both ways) is referred to as passing parameters by reference. For our purposes, at the moment, there are two (mutually exclusive) kinds of parameters: Value parameters are the kind that pass information one-way. They are so-called because the function to which they are passed receives only a copy of their values, and they cannot be altered as variable parameters can. The phrase passing by value mentioned above is another way to talk about passing value parameters. Variable parameters are the kind that pass information back to the calling function. They are so called because the function to which they are passed can alter them, just as it can alter an ordinary variable. The phrase passing by reference mentioned above is another way to talk about passing variable parameters. Consider a slightly-expanded version of calculate_bill: #include <stdio.h> int main (void); int calculate_bill (int, int, int); int main() { int bill; int fred = 25; int frank = 32; int franny = 27; bill = calculate_bill (fred, frank, franny); printf("The total bill comes to $%d.00.\n", bill); exit (0); } int calculate_bill (int diner1, int diner2, int diner3)

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Chapter 8: Parameters

{ int total; total = diner1 + diner2 + diner3; return total; } Note that all of the parameters in this example are value parameters: the information ows only one way. The values are passed to the function calculate_bill. The original values are not changed. In slightly dierent jargon, we are passing the parameters by value only. We are not passing them by reference; they are not variable parameters. All parameters must have their types declared. This is true whether they are value parameters or variable parameters. In the function calculate_bill above, the value parameters diner1, diner2, and diner3 are all declared to be of type int.

8.1 Parameters in function prototypes

Note that in the function prototype for calculate_bill, the parameter names were completely omitted. This is perfectly acceptable in ANSI C, although it might be confusing to someone trying to understand your code by reading the function prototypes, which can be in a separate le from the functions themselves. For instance, in the code example above, the function prototype for calculate_bill looks like this: int calculate_bill (int, int, int); You may include parameter names in function prototypes if you wish; this is usually a good idea when the function prototype is signicantly separated from the function denition, such as when the prototype is in a header le or at the top of a long le of function denitions. For example, we could have written the prototype for calculate_bill thus: int calculate_bill (int diner1, int diner2, int diner3); Parameter names in a function prototype do not need to match the names in the functions denition; only their types need to match. For example, we can also write the function prototype above in this way: int calculate_bill (int guest1, int guest2, int guest3); As usual, it is a good idea to use mnemonic names for the parameters in a function prototype, as in the last two examples.1 Thus, the function prototype below is not as helpful to the person reading your code as the last two examples are; it might just as well have been written without variable names at all: int calculate_bill (int variable1, int variable2, int variable3);

8.2 Value Parameters

1

That is, unless you are competing in The International Obfuscated C Code Contest (http://www.ioccc.org/).

Actual parameters and formal parameters

43

When you are passing data to a function by value, the parameters in the function you are passing the data to contain copies of the data in the parameters you are passing the data with. Let us modify the function main from the last example slightly: int main() { int bill; int fred = 25; int frank = 32; int franny = 27; bill = calculate_bill (fred, frank, franny); fred = 20000; frank = 50000; franny = 20000; printf("The total bill comes to $%d.00.\n", bill); exit (0); } As far as the function calculate_bill is concerned, fred, frank, and franny are still 25, 32, and 27 respectively. Changing their values to extortionate sums after passing them to calculate_bill does nothing; calculate_bill has already created local copies of the parameters, called diner1, diner2, and diner3 containing the earlier values. Important: Even if we named the parameters in the denition of calculate_bill to match the parameters of the function call in main (see example below), the result would be the same: main would print out $84.00, not $90000.00. When passing data by value, the parameters in the function call and the parameters in the function denition (which are only copies of the parameters in the function call) are completely separate. Just to remind you, this is the calculate_bill function: int calculate_bill (int fred, int frank, int franny) { int total; total = fred + frank + franny; return total; }

8.3 Actual parameters and formal parameters

There are two other categories that you should know about that are also referred to as parameters. They are called parameters because they dene information that is passed to a function. Actual parameters are parameters as they appear in function calls.

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Formal parameters are parameters as they appear in function declarations. A parameter cannot be both a formal and an actual parameter, but both formal parameters and actual parameters can be either value parameters or variable parameters. Lets look at calculate_bill again: #include <stdio.h> int main (void); int calculate_bill (int, int, int); int main() { int bill; int fred = 25; int frank = 32; int franny = 27; bill = calculate_bill (fred, frank, franny); printf("The total bill comes to $%d.00.\n", bill); exit (0); } int calculate_bill (int diner1, int diner2, int diner3) { int total; total = diner1 + diner2 + diner3; return total; } In the function main in the example above, fred, frank, and franny are all actual parameters when used to call calculate_bill. On the other hand, the corresponding variables in calculate_bill (namely diner1, diner2 and diner3, respectively) are all formal parameters because they appear in a function denition. Although formal parameters are always variables (which does not mean that they are always variable parameters), actual parameters do not have to be variables. You can use numbers, expressions, or even function calls as actual parameters. Here are some examples of valid actual parameters in the function call to calculate_bill: bill = calculate_bill (25, 32, 27); bill = calculate_bill (50+60, 25*2, 100-75); bill = calculate_bill (fred, franny, (int) sqrt(25)); (The last example requires the inclusion of the math routines in math.h, and compilation with the -lm option. sqrt is the square-root function and returns a double, so it must be cast into an int to be passed to calculate_bill.)

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8.4 Variadic functions

Suppose you are writing a program that repeatedly generates lists of numbers that can run anywhere from one to fty items. You never know how many numbers a particular list will contain, but you always want to add all the numbers together. Passing them to an ordinary C function will not work, because an ordinary function has a xed number of formal parameters, and cannot accept an arbitrarily long list of actual parameters. What should you do? One way of solving this problem is to use a variadic function, or function that can accept arbitrarily long lists of actual parameters. You can do this by including the stdarg.h header in your program. For example, with stdarg.h, you can write a function called add_all that will add all integers passed to it, returning correct results for all of the following calls: sum = add_all (2, 3, 4); sum = add_all (10, 150, 9, 81, 14, 2, 2, 31);

sum = add_all (4); Unfortunately, the use of stdarg.h is beyond the scope of this tutorial. For more information on variadic functions, see the GNU C Library manual (http://www.gnu.org/manual/glibc-2.0.6/

8.5 Questions for Chapter 8

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What is the dierence between a value parameter and a variable parameter? What is the dierence between a formal parameter and an actual parameter? What does passing by reference let you do that passing by value doesnt? Can a function call be used as an actual parameter? Do actual and formal parameters need to have the same names?

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Pointer operators

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9 Pointers
Making maps of data. In one sense, any variable in C is just a convenient label for a chunk of the computers memory that contains the variables data. A pointer, then, is a special kind of variable that contains the location or address of that chunk of memory. (Pointers are so called because they point to a chunk of memory.) The address contained by a pointer is a lengthy number that enables you to pinpoint exactly where in the computers memory the variable resides. Pointers are one of the more versatile features of C. There are many good reasons to use them. Knowing a variables address in memory enables you to pass the variable to a function by reference (See Section 9.4 [Variable parameters], page 51.)1 Also, since functions are just chunks of code in the computers memory, and each of them has its own address, you can create pointers to functions too, and knowing a functions address in memory enables you to pass functions as parameters too, giving your functions the ability to switch among calling numerous functions. (See [Function pointers], page 286.) Pointers are important when using text strings. In C, a text string is always accessed with a pointer to a character the rst character of the text string. For example, the following code will print the text string Boy howdy!: char *greeting = "Boy howdy!"; printf ("%s\n\n", greeting); See Chapter 15 [Strings], page 105. Pointers are important for more advanced types of data as well. For example, there is a data structure called a linked list that uses pointers to glue the items in the list together. (See Chapter 20 [Data structures], page 205, for information on linked lists.) Another use for pointers stems from functions like the C input routine scanf. This function accepts information from the keyboard, just as printf sends output to the console. However, scanf uses pointers to variables, not variables themselves. For example, the following code reads an integer from the keyboard: int my_integer; scanf ("%d", &my_integer); (See Section 16.2.9.1 [scanf], page 141, for more information.)

9.1 Pointer operators

To create a pointer to a variable, we use the * and & operators. (In context, these have nothing to do with multiplication or logical AND. For example, the following code declares a variable called total_cost and a pointer to it called total_cost_ptr. float total_cost; float *total_cost_ptr;
1

This, by the way, is how the phrase pass by reference entered the jargon. Like other pointers, a variable parameter makes a reference to the address of a variable.

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total_cost_ptr = &total_cost; The * symbol in the declaration of total_cost_ptr is the way to declare that variable to be a pointer in C. (The _ptr at the end of the variable name, on the other hand, is just a way of reminding humans that the variable is a pointer.) When you read C code to yourself, it is often useful to be able to pronounce Cs operators aloud; you will nd it can help you make sense of a dicult piece of code. For example, you can pronounce the above statement float *total_cost_ptr as Declare a oat pointer called total_cost_ptr, and you can pronounce the statement total_cost_ptr = &total_ cost; as Let total_cost_ptr take as its value the address of the variable total_cost. Here are some suggestions for pronouncing the * and & operators, which are always written in front of a variable: The contents of the address held in variable or the contents of the location pointed to by variable. The address of variable or the address at which the variable variable is stored.

&

For instance: The address of fred or the address at which the variable fred is stored.

&fred *fred_ptr

The contents of the address held in fred_ptr or the contents of the location pointed to by fred_ptr. The following examples show some common ways in which you might use the * and & operators: int some_var; /* 1 */ Declare an integer variable called some_var. int *ptr_to_some_var; /* 2 */ Declare an integer pointer called ptr_to_some_var. (The * in front of ptr_to_some_var is the way C declares ptr_to_some_var as a pointer to an integer, rather than just an integer.) some_var = 42; Let some_var take the value 42. /* 3 */

Pointer types

49

ptr_to_some_var = &some_var; /* 4 */ Let ptr_to_some_var take the address of the variable some_var as its value. (Notice that only now does ptr_to_some_var become a pointer to the particular variable some_var before this, it was merely a pointer that could point to any integer variable.) printf ("%d\n\n", *ptr_to_some_var); /* 5 */ Print out the contents of the location pointed to by ptr_to_some_var. (In other words, print out some_var itself. This will print just 42. Accessing what a pointer points to in this way is called dereferencing the pointer, because the pointer is considered to be referencing the variable.) *ptr_to_some_var = 56; /* 6 */ Let the contents of the location pointed to by ptr_to_some_var equal 56. (In the context of the other statements, this is the same as the more direct statement some_var = 56;.) A subtle point: dont confuse the usage of asterisks in code like examples 2 and 6 above. Using an asterisk in a declaration, as in example 2, declares the variable to be a pointer, while using it on the left-hand side of an assignment, as in example 6, dereferences a variable that is already a pointer, enabling you to access the variable to which the pointer is pointing.

9.2 Pointer types

Pointers can point to any type of variable, but they must be declared to do so. A pointer to an integer is not the same type of variable as a pointer to a oat or other variable type. At the business end of a pointer is usually a variable, and all variables have a type. Here are some examples of dierent types of pointer: int *my_integer_ptr; char *my_character_ptr; float *my_float_ptr; double *my_double_ptr; However, GCC is fairly lenient about casting dierent types of pointer to one another implicitly, or automatically, without your intervention. For example, the following code will simply truncate the value of *float_ptr and print out 23. (As a bonus, pronunciation is given for every signicant line of the code in this example.) #include <stdio.h> /* Include the standard input/output header in this program */ int main() /* Declare a function called main that returns an integer and takes no parameters */

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{ int *integer_ptr; /* Declare an integer pointer called integer_ptr */ float *float_ptr; /* Declare a floating-point pointer called float_ptr */ int my_int = 17; /* Declare an integer variable called my_int and assign it the value 17 */ float my_float = 23.5; /* Declare a floating-point variable called my_float and assign it the value 23.5 */ integer_ptr = &my_int; /* Assign the address of the integer variable my_int to the integer pointer variable integer_ptr */ float_ptr = &my_float; /* Assign the address of the floating-point variable my_float to the floating-point pointer variable float_ptr */ *integer_ptr = *float_ptr; /* Assign the contents of the location pointed to by the floating-point pointer variable float_ptr to the location pointed to by the integer pointer variable integer_ptr (the value assigned will be truncated) */ printf ("%d\n\n", *integer_ptr); /* Print the contents of the location pointed to by the integer pointer variable integer_ptr */ return 0; /* Return a value of 0, indicating successful execution, to the operating system */ } There will still be times when you will want to convert one type of pointer into another. For example, GCC will give a warning if you try to pass oat pointers to a function that accepts integer pointers. Not treating pointer types interchangeably will also help you understand your own code better. To convert pointer types, use the cast operator. (See Section 5.4 [The cast operator], page 22.) As you know, the general form of the cast operator is as follows: (type) variable Here is the general form of the cast operator for pointers: (type *) pointer variable Here is an actual example:

Variable parameters

51

int *my_integer_ptr; long *my_long_ptr; my_long_ptr = (long *) my_integer_ptr; This copies the value of the pointer my_integer to the pointer my_long_ptr. The cast operator ensures that the data types match. (See Chapter 20 [Data structures], page 205, for more details on pointer casting.)

9.3 Pointers and initialization

You should not initialize pointers with a value when you declare them, although the compiler will not prevent this. Doing so simply makes no sense. For example, think about what happens in the following statement: int *my_int_ptr = 2; First, the program allocates space for a pointer to an integer. Initially, the space will contain garbage (random data). It will not contain actual data until the pointer is pointed at such data. To cause the pointer to refer to a real variable, you need another statement, such as the following: my_int_ptr = &my_int; On the other hand, if you use just the single initial assignment, int *my_int_ptr = 2;, the program will try to ll the contents of the memory location pointed to by my_int_ptr with the value 2. Since my_int_ptr is lled with garbage, it can be any address. This means that the value 2 might be stored anywhere. anywhere, and if it overwrites something important, it may cause the program to crash. The compiler will warn you against this. Heed the warning!

9.4 Variable parameters

Now that you know something about pointers, we can discuss variable parameters and passing by reference in more detail. (See Chapter 8 [Parameters], page 41, to refresh your memory on this topic.) There are two main ways to return information from a function. The most common way uses the return command. However, return can only pass one value at a time back to the calling function. The second way to return information to a function uses variable parameters. Variable parameters (passing by reference) enable you to pass back an arbitrary number of values, as in the following example: #include <stdio.h> int main(); void get_values (int *, int *); int main() {

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int num1, num2; get_values (&num1, &num2); printf ("num1 = %d and num2 = %d\n\n", num1, num2); return 0; }

void get_values (int *num_ptr1, int *num_ptr2) { *num_ptr1 = 10; *num_ptr2 = 20; } The output from this program reads: num1 = 10 and num2 = 20 Note that we do use a return command in this example in the main function. Remember, main must always be declared of type int and should always return an integer value. (See Chapter 22 [Style], page 227.) When you use value parameters, the formal parameters (the parameters in the function being called) are mere copies of the actual parameters (the parameters in the function call). When you use variable parameters, on the other hand, you are passing the addresses of the variables themselves. Therefore, in the program above, it is not copies of the variables num1 and num2 that are passed to get_values, but the addresses of their actual memory locations. This information can be used to alter the variables directly, and to return the new values.

9.4.1 Passing pointers correctly

You might be wondering why main calls the function get_values above with ampersands before the parameters get_values (&num1, &num2); while the function itself is dened with asterisks before its parameters: void get_values (int *num_ptr1, int *num_ptr2) { *num_ptr1 = 10; *num_ptr2 = 20; } Think carefully for a moment about what is happening in these fragments of code. The variables num1 and num2 in main are ordinary integers, so when main prexes them with ampersands (&) while passing them to get_values, it is really passing integer pointers. Remember, &num1 should be read as the address of the variable num1. The code reads like this:

Another variable parameter example

53

get_values (&num1, &num2); Evaluate the function get_values, passing to it the addresses at which the variables num1 and num2 are stored.. The function get_values is dened like this: void get_values (int *num_ptr1, int *num_ptr2) Dene the function get_values. It returns a void value (so it operates only via side eects on the variable parameters it is passed). It takes two parameters, both of type int *. The rst parameter is called num_ptr1 and is a pointer to an integer value, and the second parameter is called num_ptr2 and is also a pointer to an integer value. When this function is called, it must be passed the addresses of variables, not the variables themselves. Remember that declaring a variable with an asterisk (*) before it means declare this variable to be a pointer, so the formal parameters of get_values are integer pointers. The parameters must be declared this way, because the main function sends the addresses of num1 and num2 that is, by the time the get_values function receives the parameters, they are already pointers hence their names in get_values: num_ptr1 and num_ptr2, rather than num1 and num2. In eect, we are matching up the data types of num1 and num2 with those of num_ptr1 and num_ptr2, respectively, when we prex num1 and num2 with ampersands while passing them, and prex num_ptr1 and num_ptr2 with asterisks in the parameter list of the function get_values. We do not have to write num_ptr1 = &num1; and num_ptr2 = &num2; the calling convention does that for us. Important! This is a general rule in C: when you pass actual parameters as pointers using ampersands (e.g. &num1, the address of the variable num1), you must use asterisks to declare as pointers the corresponding formal parameters in the function to which you pass them, (e.g. int *num_ptr1, the contents of the location pointed to by num_ptr1).

9.4.2 Another variable parameter example

There is nothing mysterious about pointers, but they can be tricky. Here is another example. Notice that the pointers in both this example and the example above are dereferenced with asterisks before they are used (for instance, when the contents of the location pointed to by height_ptr are multiplied by the integer hscale with the line *height_ptr = *height_ ptr * hscale; in the function scale_dimensions below). #include <stdio.h> int main(); void scale_dimensions (int *, int *); /* Scale some measurements */

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int main() { int height,width; height = 4; width = 5; scale_dimensions (&height, &width); printf ("Scaled height = %d\n", height); printf ("Scaled width = %d\n", width); return 0; }

void scale_dimensions (int *height_ptr, int *width_ptr) { int hscale = 3; /* scale factors */ int wscale = 5; *height_ptr = *height_ptr * hscale; *width_ptr = *width_ptr * wscale; }

9.5 Questions for Chapter 9

What is a pointer? How is a variable declared to be a pointer? What data types can pointers point to? Write a statement which converts a pointer to an integer into a pointer to a double type. 5. Why is it incorrect to write float *number = 2.65; ? 1. 2. 3. 4.

if

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10 Decisions
Testing and Branching. Making conditions. Until now, our code examples have been linear: control has owed in one direction from start to nish. In this chapter, we will examine ways to enable code to make decisions and to choose among options. You will learn how to program code that will function in situations similar to the following: If the user hits the jackpot, print a message to say so: Youve won! If a bank balance is positive, then print C for credit; otherwise, print D for debit. If the user has typed in one of ve choices, then do something that corresponds to the choice, otherwise display an error message. In the rst case there is a simple do or dont choice. In the second case, there are two choices. The nal case contains several possibilities. C oers four main ways of coding decisions like the ones above. They are listed below. if... if (condition) { do something } if...else... if (condition) { do something } else { do something else } ...?...:... (condition) ? do something : do something else; switch switch { case case case } (condition) rst case : do rst thing second case : do second thing third case : do third thing

10.1 if
The rst form of the if statement is an all-or-nothing choice: if some condition is satised, do something; otherwise, do nothing. For example:

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if (condition) statement; or if (condition) { compound statement } In the second example, instead of a single statement, a whole block of statements is executed. In fact, wherever you can place a single statement in C, you can place a compound statement instead: a block of statements enclosed by curly brackets. A condition is usually an expression that makes some sort of comparison. It must be either true or false, and it must be enclosed in parentheses: (...). If the condition is true, then the statement or compound statement following the condition will be executed; otherwise, it will be ignored. For example: if (my_num == 0) { printf ("The number is zero.\n"); } if (my_num > 0) { printf ("The number is positive.\n"); } if (my_num < 0) { printf ("The number is negative.\n"); } The same code could be written more compactly in the following way: if (my_num == 0) printf ("The number is zero.\n"); if (my_num > 0) printf ("The number is positive.\n"); if (my_num < 0) printf ("The number is negative.\n"); It is often a good idea stylistically to use curly brackets in an if statement. It is no less ecient from the compilers viewpoint, and sometimes you will want to include more statements later. It also makes if statements stand out clearly in the code. However, curly brackets make no sense for short statements such as the following: if (my_num == 0) my_num++; The if command by itself permits only limited decisions. With the addition of else in the next section, however, if becomes much more exible.

10.2 if... else...

Lets review the basic form of the if... else... statement: if (condition) { compound statement

Nested if statements

57

} else { compound statement } As with the bare if statement, there is a simplied version of the if... else... statement without code blocks: if (condition) statement else statement; When the if... else... is executed, the condition in parentheses is evaluated. If it is true, then the rst statement or code block is executed; otherwise, the second statement or code block is executed. This can save unnecessary tests and make a program more ecient: if (my_num > 0) { printf ("The number is positive."); } else { printf ("The number is zero or negative."); } It is not necessary to test my_num in the second block because that block is not executed unless my_num is not greater than zero.

10.3 Nested if statements

Consider the following two code examples. Their purposes are exactly the same. int my_num = 3; if ((my_num > 2) && (my_num < 4)) { printf ("my_num is three"); } or: int my_num =3; if (my_num > 2) { if (my_num < 4) { printf ("my_num is three"); } } Both of these code examples have the same result, but they arrive at it in dierent ways. The rst example, when translated into English, might read, If my_num is greater than two and my_num is less than four (and my_num is an integer), then my_num has to be three. The second method is more complicated. In English, it can be read, If my_num is greater

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than two, do what is in the rst code block. Inside it, my_num is always greater than two; otherwise the program would never have arrived there. Now, if my_num is also less than four, then do what is inside the second code block. Inside that block, my_num is always less than four. We also know it is more than two, since the whole of the second test happens inside the block where thats true. So, assuming my_num is an integer, it must be three. In short, there are two ways of making compound decisions in C. You make nested tests, or you can use the comparison operators &&, ||, and so on. In situations where sequences of comparison operators become too complex, nested tests are often a more attractive option. Consider the following example: if (i > 2) { /* i is greater than 2 here! */ } else { /* i is less than or equal to 2 here! */ } The code blocks in this example provide safe zones wherein you can rest assured that certain conditions hold. This enables you to think and code in a structured way. You can nest if statements in multiple levels, as in the following example: #include <stdio.h> int main () { int grade; printf("Type in your grade: "); scanf ("%d", &grade); if (grade < 10) { printf ("Man, youre lame! Just go away.\n"); } else { if (grade < 65) { printf ("You failed.\n"); } else { printf ("You passed!\n"); if (grade >= 90) { printf ("And you got an A!\n"); } else

The switch statement

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{ printf ("But you didnt get an A. } } } return 0; } Sorry.\n");

10.4 The ?. . . :. . . operator

The ?. . . :. . . operator is a sort of shorthand if. . . else. . . statement. Because it is a little cryptic, it is not often used, but the basic form is as follows: (condition) ? expression1 : expression2; The program evaluates condition. If it is true (not zero), then expression1 is returned; otherwise, expression2 is returned. For example, in the short program below, the line bas = (foo > bar) ? foo : bar; assigns foo to bas if foo is greater than bar; otherwise, it assigns bar to bas. #include <stdio.h> int main() { int foo = 10; int bar = 50; int bas; bas = (foo > bar) ? foo : bar; printf("bas = %d\n\n", bas); return 0; } The program will print bas = 50 as a result.

10.5 The switch statement

The switch construction is another way of making decisions in C code. It is very exible, but only tests for integer and character values. It has the following general form: switch (integer or character expression) { case constant1 : statement1; break; /* optional */ case constant2 : statement2; break; /* optional */

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case constant3 : statement3; break; /* optional */ ... } The integer or character expression in the parentheses is evaluated, and the program checks whether it matches one of the constants in the various cases listed. If there is a match, the statement following that case will be executed, and execution will continue until either a break statement or the closing curly bracket of the entire switch statement is encountered. One of the cases is called default. Statements after the default case are executed when none of the other cases are satised. You only need a default case if you are not sure you are covering every case with the ones you list. Here is an example program that uses the switch statement to translate decimal digits into Morse code:

10.6 Example Listing

#include <stdio.h> int main (); void morse (int);

int main () { int digit; printf ("Enter any digit in the range 0 to 9: "); scanf ("%d", &digit); if ((digit < 0) || (digit > 9)) { printf ("Your number was not in the range 0 to 9.\n"); } else { printf ("The Morse code of that digit is "); morse (digit); } return 0; }

void morse (int digit) /* print out Morse code */ { switch (digit) { case 0 : printf ("-----");

Example Listing

61

break; case 1 : break; case 2 : break; case 3 : break; case 4 : break; case 5 : break; case 6 : break; case 7 : break; case 8 : break; case 9 :

printf (".----"); printf ("..---"); printf ("...--"); printf ("....-"); printf ("....."); printf ("-...."); printf ("--..."); printf ("---.."); printf ("----.");

} printf ("\n\n"); } The morse function selects one of the printf statements with switch, based on the integer expression digit. After every case in the switch, a break statement is used to jump switch statements closing bracket }. Without break, execution would fall through to the next case and execute its printf statement. Here is an example of using fallthrough in a constructive way. The function yes accepts input from the user and tests whether it was y or Y. (The getchar function is from the standard library and reads a character of input from the terminal. See Section 16.3.1 [getchar], page 144.) #include <stdio.h> int main () { printf ("Will you join the Free Software movement? "); if (yes()) { printf("Great! The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!\n\n"); } else { printf("Too bad. Maybe next life...\n\n"); } return 0; }

int yes()

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{ switch (getchar()) { case y : case Y : return 1; default : return 0; } } If the character is y, then the program falls through and meets the statement return 1. If there were a break statement after case y, then the program would not be able to reach case Y unless an actual Y were typed. Note: The return statements substitute for break in the above code, but they do more than break out of switch they break out of the whole function. This can be a useful trick.

10.7 Questions for Chapter 10

1. Translate the following into good C: If 1 does not equal 42, print out Thank heavens for mathematics! 2. Write a program to get a lot of numbers from the user and print out the maximum and minimum of those. 3. Write an automatic teller machine program that simulates telling you your bank balance when you enter your account number and PIN number, but otherwise displays an error. 4. Write a mock program for a car computer that tells you how many kilometers to the liter youre getting when you enter how many liters of gas youve used and how far you travelled.

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11 Loops
Controlling repetitive processes. Nesting loops Loops are a kind of C construct that enable the programmer to execute a sequence of instructions over and over, with some condition specifying when they will stop. There are three kinds of loop in C: while do . . . while for

11.1 while
The simplest of the three is the while loop. It looks like this: while (condition) { do something } The condition (for example, (a > b)) is evaluated every time the loop is executed. If the condition is true, then statements in the curly brackets are executed. If the condition is false, then those statements are ignored, and the while loop ends. The program then executes the next statement in the program. The condition comes at the start of the loop, so it is tested at the start of every pass, or time through the loop. If the condition is false before the loop has been executed even once, then the statements inside the curly brackets will never be executed. (See Section 11.2 [do...while], page 64, for an example of a loop construction where this is not true.) The following example prompts the user to type in a line of text, and then counts all the spaces in the line. The loop terminates when the user hits the RET key and then prints out the number of spaces. (See Section 16.3.1 [getchar], page 144, for more information on the standard library getchar function.) #include <stdio.h> int main() { char ch; int count = 0; printf ("Type in a line of text.\n"); while ((ch = getchar()) != \n) { if (ch == ) { count++;

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} } printf ("Number of spaces = %d.\n\n", count); return 0; }

11.2 do. . . while

The do..while loop has the form: do { do something } while (condition); Notice that the condition is at the end of this loop. This means that a do..while loop will always be executed at least once, before the test is made to determine whether it should continue. This is the chief dierence between while and do. . . while. The following program accepts a line of input from the user. If the line contains a string of characters delimited with double quotation marks, such as "Hello!", the program prints the string, with quotation marks. For example, if the user types in the following string: I walked into a red sandstone building. "Oof!" [Careful, Nick!] . . . then the program will print the following string: "Oof!" If the line contains only one double quotation mark, then the program will display an error, and if it contains no double quotation marks, the program will print nothing. Notice that the do. . . while loop in main waits to detect a linefeed character (\n), while the one in get_substring looks for a double quotation mark ("), but checks for a linefeed in the loop body, or main code block of the loop, so that it can exit the loop if the user entered a linefeed prematurely (before the second "). This is one of the more complex examples we have examined so far, and you might nd it useful to trace the code, or follow through it step by step. #include <stdio.h> int main(); void get_substring();

int main() { char ch; printf ("Enter a string with a quoted substring:\n\n"); do

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{ ch = getchar(); if (ch == ") { putchar(ch); get_substring(); } } while (ch != \n); return 0; }

void get_substring() { char ch; do { ch = getchar(); putchar(ch); if (ch == \n) { printf ("\nString was not closed "); printf ("before end of line.\n"); break; } } while (ch != "); printf ("\n\n"); }

11.3 for
The most complex loop in C is the for loop. The for construct, as it was developed in earlier computer languages such as BASIC and Pascal, was intended to behave in the following way: For all values of variable from value1 to value2, in steps of value3, repeat the following sequence of commands. . . The for loop in C is much more versatile than its counterpart in those earlier languages. The for loop looks like this in C: for (initialization; condition; increment) { do something;

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} In normal usage, these expressions have the following signicance. initialization This is an expression that initializes the control variable, or the variable tested in the condition part of the for statement. (Sometimes this variable is called the loops index.) The initialization part is only carried out once before the start of the loop. Example: index = 1. condition This is a conditional expression that is tested every time through the loop, just as in a while loop. It is evaluated at the beginning of every loop, and the loop is only executed if the expression is true. Example: index <= 20. increment This is an expression that is used to alter the value of the control variable. In earlier languages, this usually meant adding or subtracting 1 from the variable. In C, it can be almost anything. Examples: index++, index *= 20, or index /= 2.3. For example, the following for loop prints out the integers from 1 to 10: int my_int; for (my_int = 1; my_int <= 10; my_int++) { printf ("%d ", my_int); printf("\n"); } The following example prints out all prime numbers between 1 and the macro value MAX_INT. (A prime numbers is a number that cannot be divided by any number except 1 and itself without leaving a remainder.) This program checks whether a number is a prime by dividing it by all smaller integers up to half its size. (See Chapter 12 [Preprocessor directives], page 73, for more information on macros.) #include <stdio.h> #define MAX_INT #define TRUE #define FALSE int main () { int poss_prime; for (poss_prime = 2; poss_prime <= MAX_INT; poss_prime++) { if (prime(poss_prime)) { printf ("%d ", poss_prime); } } 500 1 0

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printf("\n\n"); return 0; }

prime (int poss_prime) { int poss_factor;

/* check whether poss_prime is prime */

for (poss_factor = 2; poss_factor <= poss_prime/2; poss_factor++) { if (poss_prime % poss_factor == 0) { return (FALSE); } } return (TRUE); } The program should print the following sequence of integers: 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47 53 59 61 67 71 101 103 107 109 113 127 131 137 139 149 151 157 163 167 193 197 199 211 223 227 229 233 239 241 251 257 263 269 293 307 311 313 317 331 337 347 349 353 359 367 373 379 409 419 421 431 433 439 443 449 457 461 463 467 479 487

73 79 83 89 173 179 181 271 277 281 383 389 397 491 499

97 191 283 401

11.4 The exibility of for

As mentioned above, Cs for construct is quite versatile. You can use almost any statement you like for its initialization, condition, and increment parts, including an empty statement. For example, omitting the initialization and increment parts creates what is essentially a while loop: int my_int = 1; for ( ; my_int <= 20; ) { printf ("%d ", my_int); my_int++; } Omitting the condition part as well produces an innite loop, or loop that never ends: for ( ; ; ) { printf("Aleph Null bottles of beer on the wall...\n"); } You can break out of an innite loop with the break or return commands. (See Section 11.5 [Terminating and speeding loops], page 69.)

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Consider the following loop: for (my_int = 2; my_int <= 1000; my_int = my_int * my_int) { printf ("%d ", my_int); } This loop begins with 2, and each time through the loop, my_int is squared. Heres another odd for loop: char ch; for (ch = *; ch != \n; ch = getchar()) { /* do something */ } This loop starts o by initializing ch with an asterisk. It checks that ch is not a linefeed character (which it isnt, the rst time through), then reads a new value of ch with the library function getchar and executes the code inside the curly brackets. When it detects a line feed, the loop ends. It is also possible to combine several increment parts in a for loop using the comma operator ,. (See Section 18.2 [The comma operator], page 189, for more information.) #include <stdio.h> int main() { int up, down; for (up = 0, down=10; up < down; up++, down--) { printf("up = %d, down= %d\n",up,down); } return 0; } The example above will produce the following output: up = 0, down= 10 up = 1, down= 9 up = 2, down= 8 up = 3, down= 7 up = 4, down= 6 One feature of the for loop that unnerves some programmers is that even the value of the loops conditional expression can be altered from within the loop itself: int index, number = 20; for (index = 0; index <= number; index++) { if (index == 9) {

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number = 30; } } In many languages, this technique is syntactically forbidden. Not so in the exible language C. It is rarely a good idea, however, because it can make your code confusing and hard to maintain.

11.5 Terminating and speeding loops

C provides simple ways of terminating or speeding up any of the three loops we have discussed, whether or not it has run its course. The three main commands to do so are break, return, and continue.

11.5.1 Terminating loops with break

The usual statement to terminate a loop is the same statement that is used to jump out of switch statements: break; If this statement is encountered within a loop, the loop will end immediately. For instance, here is an inecient way of assigning 12 to my_int: for (my_int = 1; my_int <= 100; my_int++) { if (my_int == 12) { break; } } printf("my_int = %d\n\n", my_int);

11.5.2 Terminating loops with return

Suppose that a program is in the middle of a loop (or some nested loops) in a complex function, and suddenly the function nds its answer. This is where the return statement comes in handy. The return command will jump out of any number of loops and pass the value back to the calling function without having to nish the loops or the rest of the function. (See Section 11.6 [Nested loops], page 71, for clarication of the idea of placing one loop inside another.) Example: #include <stdio.h> int main() {

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printf ("%d\n\n", returner(5, 10)); printf ("%d\n\n", returner(5, 5000)); return 0; }

int returner (int foo, int bar) { while (foo <= 1000) { if (foo > bar) { return (foo); } foo++; } return foo; } The function returner contains a while loop that increments the variable foo and tests it against a value of 1000. However, if at any point the value of foo exceeds the value of the variable bar, the function will exit the loop, immediately returning the value of foo to the calling function. Otherwise, when foo reaches 1000, the function will increment foo one more time and return it to main. Because of the values it passes to returner, the main function will rst print a value of 11, then 1001. Can you see why?

11.5.3 Speeding loops with continue

Instead of terminating a loop, you might want to speed it to its next pass, perhaps to avoid executing irrelevant statements. To do so, you should use the continue statement. When a continue statement is encountered, the program will skip the rest of the loops code block and jump straight to the start of the next pass through the loop. Here is an example that uses the continue statement to avoid division by zero (which causes a run-time error): for (my_int = -10; my_int <= 10; my_int++) { if (my_int == 0) { continue; } printf ("%d", 20/i); }

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11.6 Nested loops

Just as decisions can be nested, so can loops; that is, you can place loops inside other loops. This can be useful, for example, when you are coding multidimensional arrays. (See Chapter 14 [Arrays], page 91.) The example below prints a square of asterisks by nesting a printf command inside an inner loop, which is itself nested inside an outer loop. Any kind of loop can be nested. For example, the code below could have been written with while loops instead of for loops: #include <stdio.h> #define SIZE 5 int main() { int square_y, square_x; printf ("\n"); for (square_y = 1; square_y <= SIZE; square_y++) { for (square_x = 1; square_x <= SIZE; square_x++) { printf("*"); } printf ("\n"); } printf ("\n"); return 0; } The output of the above code looks like this: ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

11.7 Questions for Chapter 11

1. 2. 3. 4. How many kinds of loop does C oer, and what are they? When is the condition tested in each of the loops? Which of the loops is always executed at least once? Write a program that copies all input to output line by line.

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5. Write a program to get 10 numbers from the user and add them together. 6. Rewrite the nested loops example to print a square with while loops instead of for loops.

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12 Preprocessor directives

Making programming versatile. GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection, contains a C preprocessor. A preprocessor is a program that examines C code before it is compiled and manipulates it in various ways. There are two main uses of a preprocessor. One is to include external les, such as header les. The other is to dene macros, which are names (possibly with arguments) that are expanded by the preprocessor into pieces of text or C code. Macros that are expanded into text are usually displayed to the user, but macros that are expanded into C code are executed with the rest of the C code that surrounds them.

12.1 A few directives

All preprocessor directives, or commands, are preceded by a hash mark (#). One example you have already seen in previous chapters is the #include directive: #include <stdio.h> This directive tells the preprocessor to include the le stdio.h; in other words, to treat it as though it were part of the program text. A le to be included may itself contain #include directives, thus encompassing other les. When this happens, the included les are said to be nested. Here are a few other directives:

#if . . . #endif The #if directive is followed by an expression on the same line. The lines of code between #if and #endif will be compiled only if the expression is true. This is called conditional compilation. #else This is part of an #if preprocessor statement and works in the same way with #if that the regular C else does with the regular if.

#line constant lename This causes the compiler to act as though the next line is line number constant and is part of the le lename. Mainly used for debugging. #error This forces the compiler to abort. Also intended for debugging.

Below is an example of conditional compilation. The following code displays 23 to the screen.

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#include <stdio.h> #define CHOICE 500 int my_int = 0; #if (CHOICE == 500) void set_my_int() { my_int = 23; } #else void set_my_int() { my_int = 17; } #endif int main () { set_my_int(); printf("%d\n", my_int); return 0; }

12.2 Macros
Macros can make long, ungainly pieces of code into short words. The simplest use of macros is to give constant values meaningful names. For example: #define MY_PHONE 5551234 This allows the programmer to use the word MY_PHONE to mean the number 5551234. In this case, the word is longer than the number, but it is more meaningful and makes a program read more naturally. It can also be centralised in a header le, where it is easily changed; this eliminates tedious search-and-replace procedures on code if the value appears frequently in the code. It has been said, with some humorous exaggeration, that the only values that should appear naked in C code instead of as macros or variables are 1 and 0. The dierence between dening a macro for 5551234 called MY_PHONE and declaring a long integer variable called my_phone with the same value is that the variable my_phone has the value 5551234 only provisionally; it can be incremented with the statement my_ phone++;, for example. In some sense, however, the macro MY_PHONE is that value, and only that value the C preprocessor simply searches through the C code before it is compiled and replaces every instance of MY_PHONE with 5551234. Issuing the command MY_PHONE++; is no more or less sensible than issuing the command 5551234++;. Any piece of C code can be made into a macro, Macros are not merely constants referred to at compile time, but are strings that are physically replaced with their values by the preprocessor before compilation. For example:

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#define SUM 1 + 2 + 3 + 4

would allow SUM to be used instead of 1 + 2 + 3 + 4. Usually, this would equal 10, so that in the statement example1 = SUM + 10;, the variable example1 equals 20. Sometimes, though, this macro will be evaluated dierently; for instance, in the statement example2 = SUM * 10;, the variable example2 equals 46, instead of 100, as you might think. Can you gure out why? Hint: it has to do with the order of operations.

The quotation marks in the following macro allow the string to be called by the identier SONG instead of typing it out over and over. Because the text 99 bottles of beer on the wall... is enclosed by double quotation marks, it will never be interpreted as C code.

#define SONG "99 bottles of beer on the wall..."

Macros cannot dene more than a single line, but they can be used anywhere except inside strings. (Anything enclosed in string quotes is assumed to be untouchable by the compiler.)

Some macros are dened already in the le stdio.h, for example, NULL (the value 0).

There are a few more directives for macro denition besides #define:

#undef

This undenes a macro, leaving the name free.

#ifdef

This is a kind of #if that is followed by a macro name. If that macro is dened then this directive is true. #ifdef works with #else in the same way that #if does.

#ifndef

This is the opposite of #ifdef. It is also followed by a macro name. If that name is not dened then this is true. It also works with #else.

Here is a code example using some macro denition directives from this section, and some conditional compilation directives from the last section as well.

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#include <stdio.h> #define CHOICE 500 int my_int = 0; #undef CHOICE #ifdef CHOICE void set_my_int() { my_int = 23; } #else void set_my_int() { my_int = 17; } #endif int main () { set_my_int(); printf("%d\n", my_int); return 0; } The above code example displays 17 on the screen.

12.2.1 Macro functions

Macros can also accept parameters and return values. Macros that do so are called macro functions. To create a macro function, simply dene a macro with a parameter that has whatever name you like, such as my_val. For example, one macro dened in the standard libraries is abs, which returns the absolute value of its parameter. Let us dene our own version, ABS, below. (Note that we are dening it in upper case not only to avoid conicting with abs, but also because all macros should be dened in upper case, in the GNU coding style. See Chapter 22 [Style], page 227.) #define ABS(my_val) ((my_val) < 0) ? -(my_val) : (my_val) This macro uses the ?...:... command to return a positive number no matter what value is assigned to my_val if my_val is dened as a positive number, the macro returns the same number, and if my_val is dened as a negative number, the macro returns its negative (which will be positive). (See Chapter 10 [Decisions], page 55, for more information on the ?...:... structure. If you write ABS(-4), then the preprocessor will substitute -4 for my_val; if you write ABS(i), then the preprocessor will substitute i for my_val, and so on. Macros can take more than one parameter, as in the code example below. One caveat: macros are substituted whole wherever they are used in a program: this is potentially a huge amount of code repetition. The advantage of a macro over an actual

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function, however, is speed. No time is taken up in passing control to a new function, because control never leaves the home function; the macro just makes the function a bit longer. A second caveat: function calls cannot be used as macro parameters. The following code will not work: ABS (cos(36)) Here is an example of macro functions in use: #include <stdio.h> #define #define #define #define #define #define #define STRING1 STRING2 EXPRESSION1 EXPRESSION2 ABS(x) MAX(a,b) BIGGEST(a,b,c) () (STRING1); (STRING2); ("%d\n", EXPRESSION1); ("%d\n", EXPRESSION2); ("%d\n", ABS(-5)); ("Biggest of 1, 2, and 3 is %d\n", BIGGEST(1,2,3)); "A macro definition\n" "must be all on one line!\n" 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 EXPRESSION1 + 10 ((x) < 0) ? -(x) : (x) (a < b) ? (b) : (a) (MAX(a,b) < c) ? (c) : (MAX(a,b))

int main { printf printf printf printf printf printf

return 0; } The output from the code example above is as follows: A macro definition must be all on one line! 10 20 5 Biggest of 1, 2, and 3 is 3

12.3 Extended macro example

Here are some examples of macros taken from actual working C code, in this case the code of GNU Emacs, the text editor of choice for many C programmers, and in fact the editor in which this edition of the book was written. Most of the macro examples below dene various types of integer as having certain sizes. It can be very useful when doing advanced C programming to know whether a long integer, for instance, is 32 or 64 bits long on your system; if you select the wrong size, your code might crash or might not even compile. In the case of Emacs, the maximum size of

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certain variables (how many bits they contain) aects every aspect of its operation, even determining how long an Emacs text le can be.

Each piece of code below is prexed with the name of the le from which the code is taken, and followed by a note on some interesting features of the macros dened.

emacs/src/config.h

/* Note that lisp.h uses this in a preprocessor conditional, so it would not work to use sizeof. That being so, we do all of them without sizeof, for uniformitys sake. */ #ifndef BITS_PER_INT #define BITS_PER_INT 32 #endif #ifndef BITS_PER_LONG #ifdef _LP64 #define BITS_PER_LONG 64 #else #define BITS_PER_LONG 32 #endif #endif In the middle of this set of macros, from config.h, the Emacs programmer used the characters /* and */ to create an ordinary C comment. C comments can be interspersed with macros freely. The macro BITS_PER_INT is dened here to be 32 (but only if it is not already dened, thanks to the #ifndef directive). The Emacs code will then treat integers as having 32 bits. (See Section 5.1 [Integer variables], page 19.) The second chunk of macro code in this example checks to see whether BITS_PER_LONG is dened. If it is not, but _LP64 is dened, it denes BITS_PER_LONG to be 64, so that all long integers will be treated as having 64 bits. (_LP64 is a GCC macro that is dened on 64-bit systems. It stands for longs and pointers are 64 bits.) If _LP64 is not present, the code assumes it is on a 32-bit system and denes BITS_PER_LONG to be 32. emacs/src/lisp.h

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/* These are default choices for the types to use. */ #ifdef _LP64 #ifndef EMACS_INT #define EMACS_INT long #define BITS_PER_EMACS_INT BITS_PER_LONG #endif #ifndef EMACS_UINT #define EMACS_UINT unsigned long #endif #else /* not _LP64 */ #ifndef EMACS_INT #define EMACS_INT int #define BITS_PER_EMACS_INT BITS_PER_INT #endif #ifndef EMACS_UINT #define EMACS_UINT unsigned int #endif #endif This set of macros, from lisp.h, again checks to see whether _LP64 is dened. If it is, it denes EMACS_INT as long (if it is not already dened), and BITS_PER_EMACS_INT to be the same as BITS_PER_LONG, which was dened in config.h, above. It then denes EMACS_UINT to be an unsigned long, if it is not already dened. If _LP64 is not dened, it is assumed we are on a 32-bit system. EMACS_INT is dened to be an int if it is not already dened, and EMACS_UINT is dened to be an unsigned int if it is not already dened. Again, note that the programmer has freely interspersed a comment with the preprocessor code. emacs/src/lisp.h /* These values are overridden by the m- file on some machines. */ #ifndef VALBITS #define VALBITS (BITS_PER_EMACS_INT - 4) #endif Here is another example from lisp.h. The macro VALBITS, which denes another size of integer internal to Emacs, is dened as four less than BITS_PER_EMACS_INT that is, 60 on 64-bit systems, and 28 on 32-bit systems. emacs/src/lisp.h #ifndef XINT /* Some machines need to do this differently. */ #define XINT(a) ((EMACS_INT) (((a) << (BITS_PER_EMACS_INT - VALBITS)) \ >> (BITS_PER_EMACS_INT - VALBITS))) #endif The interesting feature of the XINT macro above is not only that it is a function, but that it is broken across multiple lines with the backslash character (\). The GCC preprocessor simply deletes the backslash, deletes the preceding whitespace from the next line, and appends it where the backslash was. In this way, it is possible to treat long, multi-line macros as though they are actually on a single line. (See Chapter 18 [Advanced operators], page 185, for more information on the the advanced operators << and >>.)

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12.4 Questions
1. Dene a macro called BIRTHDAY which equals the day of the month upon which your birthday falls. 2. Write an instruction to the preprocessor to include the math library math.h. 3. A macro is always a number. True or false?

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13 Libraries
Plug-in C expansions. Header les. The core of the C language is small and simple, but special functionality is provided in the form of external libraries of ready-made functions. Standardized libraries make C code extremely portable, or easy to compile on many dierent computers. Libraries are les of ready-compiled code that the compiler merges, or links, with a C program during compilation. For example, there are libraries of mathematical functions, string handling functions, and input/output functions. Indeed, most of the facilities C oers are provided as libraries. Some libraries are provided for you. You can also make your own, but to do so, you will need to know how GNU builds libraries. We will discuss that later. (See Section 17.6 [Building a library], page 180.) Most C programs include at least one library. You need to ensure both that the library is linked to your program and that its header les are included in your program. The standard C library, or glibc, is linked automatically with every program, but header les are never included automatically, so you must always include them yourself. Thus, you must always include stdio.h in your program if you intend to use the standard input/output features of C, even though glibc, which contains the input/output routines, is linked automatically. Other libraries, however, are not linked automatically. You must link them to your program yourself. For example, to link the math library libm.so, type gcc -o program name program name.c -lm The command-line option to link libm.so is simply -lm, without the lib or the .so, or in the case of static libraries, .a. (See Section 13.2 [Kinds of library], page 83.) The -l option was created because the average GNU system already has many libraries, and more can be added at any time. This means that sometimes two libraries provide alternate denitions of the same function. With judicious use of the -l option, however, you can usually clarify to the compiler which denition of the function should be used. Libraries specied earlier on the command line take precedence over those dened later, and code from later libraries is only linked in if it matches a reference (function denition, macro, global variable, etc.) that is still undened. (See Section 17.4 [Compiling multiple les], page 172, for more information.) In summary, you must always do two things: link the library with a -l option to gcc (a step that may be skipped in the case of glibc). include the library header les (a step you must always follow, even for glibc).

13.1 Header les

As mentioned above, libraries have header les that dene information to be used in conjunction with the libraries, such as functions and data types. When you include a header

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le, the compiler adds the functions, data types, and other information in the header le to the list of reserved words and commands in the language. After that, you cannot use the names of functions or macros in the header le to mean anything other than what the library species, in any source code le that includes the header le. The most commonly used header le is for the standard input/output routines in glibc and is called stdio.h. This and other header les are included with the #include command at the top of a source code le. For example, #include "name.h" includes a header le from the current directory (the directory in which your C source code le appears), and #include <name.h> includes a le from a system directory a standard GNU directory like /usr/include. (The #include command is actually a preprocessor directive, or instruction to a program used by the C compiler to simplify C code. (See Chapter 12 [Preprocessor directives], page 73, for more information.) Here is an example that uses the #include directive to include the standard stdio.h header in order to print a greeting on the screen with the printf command. (The characters \n cause printf to move the cursor to the next line.) #include <stdio.h> int main () { printf ("C standard I/O file is included.\n"); printf ("Hello world!\n"); return 0; } If you save this code in a le called hello.c, you can compile this program with the following command: gcc -o hello hello.c As mentioned earlier, you can use some library functions without having to link library les explicitly, since every program is always linked with the standard C library. This is called libc on older operating systems such as Unix, but glibc (GNU libc) on GNU systems. The glibc le includes standard functions for input/output, date and time calculation, string manipulation, memory allocation, mathematics, and other language features. Most of the standard glibc functions can be incorporated into your program just by using the #include directive to include the proper header les. For example, since glibc includes the standard input/output routines, all you need to do to be able to call printf is put the line #include <stdio.h> at the beginning of your program, as in the example that follows. Note that stdio.h is just one of the many header les you will eventually use to access glibc. The GNU C library is automatically linked with every C program, but you will eventually need a variety of header les to access it. These header les are not included in your code automatically you must include them yourself!

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#include <stdio.h> #include <math.h> int main () { double x, y; y = sin (x); printf ("Math library ready\n"); return 0; } However, programs that use a special function outside of glibc including mathematical functions that are nominally part of glibc, such as function sin in the example above! must use the -l option to gcc in order to link the appropriate libraries. If you saved this code above in a le called math.c, you could compile it with the following command: gcc -o math math.c -lm The option -lm links in the library libm.so, which is where the mathematics routines are actually located on a GNU system. To learn which header les you must include in your program in order to use the features of glibc that interest you, consult section Table of Contents in The GNU C Library Reference Manual. This document lists all the functions, data types, and so on contained in glibc, arranged by topic and header le. (See Section 13.3 [Common library functions], page 84, for a partial list of these header les.) Note: Strictly speaking, you need not always use a system header le to access the functions in a library. It is possible to write your own declarations that mimic the ones in the standard header les. You might want to do this if the standard header les are too large, for example. In practice, however, this rarely happens, and this technique is better left to advanced C programmers; using the header les that came with your GNU system is a more reliable way to access libraries.

13.2 Kinds of library

There are two kinds of library: static libraries and shared libraries. When you link to a static library, the code for the entire library is merged with the object code for your program. If you link to many static libraries, your executable will be enormous. Shared libraries were developed in the late 1980s to reduce the code size of programs on operating systems like GNU. When you link to a shared library, the librarys code is not merged with your programs object code. Instead, stub code is inserted into your object code. The stub code is very small and merely calls the functions in the shared library the operating system does the rest. An executable created with a shared library can therefore be far smaller than one created with a static library. Shared libraries can also reduce the amount of memory used.

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Although shared libraries seem to have every advantage over static libraries, static libraries are still useful. For example, sometimes you will wish to distribute an executable to people whose computers do not have the libraries that yours does. In that case, you might link to a static version of the libraries. This will incorporate the library functions that you need into your executable, so that it will run on systems that dont have those libraries. (It is also sometimes easier to debug a program that is linked to static libraries than one linked to shared libraries. See Section 23.5 [Introduction to GDB], page 239, for more information.) The le name for a library always starts with lib and ends with either .a (if it is static) or .so (if it is shared). For example, libm.a is the static version of the C math library, and libm.so is the shared version. As explained above, you must use the -l option with the name of a library, minus its lib prex and .a or .so sux, to link that library to your program (except the library glibc, which is always linked). For example, the following shell command creates an executable program called math from the source code le math.c and the library libm.so. gcc -o math math.c -lm The shared version of the library is always linked by default. If you want to link the static version of the library, you must use the GCC option --static. The following example links libm.a instead of libm.so. gcc -o math math.c -lm --static Type info gcc at your shell prompt for more information about GCC options.

13.3 Common library functions

Checking character types. Handling strings. Doing maths. The libraries in GCC contain a repertoire of standard functions and macros. There are many dierent kinds of function and macro in the libraries. Here are a few of the dierent kinds available, with the header les you can use to access them: Character handling: ctype.h Mathematics: math.h String manipulation: string.h You may nd it useful to read the header les yourself. They are usually found in the directories /usr/include and its subdirectories on GNU/Linux systems. The three header les listed above can be found in /usr/include; there is a second version of ctype.h in /usr/include/linux.1
1

The version of ctype.h in the /usr/include directory proper is the one that comes with glibc; the one in /usr/include/linux is a special version associated with the Linux kernel. You can specify the one you want with a full pathname inside double quotes (for example, #include "/usr/include/linux/ctype.h"), or you can use the -I option of gcc to force GCC to search a set of directories in a specic order. See Section 17.6 [Building a library], page 180, for more information.)

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13.3.1 Character handling

Lets examine some simple library functions and see how they are used. Some of the functions that are available on GNU systems for handling individual characters are described below. They are all macros, so the usual caveats about macro parameters apply. (See Section 12.2.1 [Macro functions], page 76.) All of the functions below accept single variables of type char as parameters. To use any of them, you must include the system header le ctype.h; the library used is simply glibc, which is linked automatically. isalnum isalpha isascii Returns true if and only if the parameter is alphanumeric: that is, an alphabetic character (see isalpha) or a digit (see isdigit). Returns true if and only if the parameter is alphabetic. An alphabetic character is any character from A through Z or a through z. Returns true if and only if the parameter is a valid ASCII character: that is, it has an integer value in the range 0 through 127. (Remember, the char type in C is actually a kind of integer!) Returns true if and only if the parameter is a control character. Control characters vary from system to system, but are usually dened as characters in the range 0 to 31. Returns true if and only if the parameter is a digit in the range 0 through 9. Returns true if and only if the parameter is graphic: that is, if the character is either alphanumeric (see isalnum) or punctuation (see ispunct). All graphical characters are valid ASCII characters, but ASCII also includes nongraphical characters such as control characters (see iscntrl) and whitespace (see isspace). Returns true if and only if the parameter is a lower-case alphabetic character (see isalpha). Returns true if and only if the parameter is a printable character: that is, the character is either graphical (see isgraph) or a space character. Returns true if and only if the parameter is a punctuation character. Returns true if and only if the parameter is a whitespace character. What is dened as whitespace varies from system to system, but it usually includes space characters and tab characters, and sometimes newline characters. Returns true if and only if the parameter is an upper-case alphabetic character (see isalpha). Returns true if and only if the parameter is a valid hexadecimal digit: that is, a decimal digit (see isdigit), or a letter from a through f or A through F. Returns the parameter stripped of its eighth bit, so that it has an integer value from 0 through 127 and is therefore a valid ASCII character. (See isascii.) Converts a character into its lower-case counterpart. Does not aect characters which are already in lower case.

iscntrl

isdigit isgraph

islower isprint ispunct isspace

isupper isxdigit toascii tolower

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toupper

Converts a character into its upper-case counterpart. Does not aect characters which are already in upper case.

/********************************************************/ /* */ /* Demonstration of character utility functions */ /* */ /********************************************************/ #include <stdio.h> #include <ctype.h> #define allchars ch = 0; isascii(ch); ch++ /* A criminally long main program! */

int main () { char ch;

printf ("\n\nVALID CHARACTERS FROM isgraph:\n\n"); for (allchars) { if (isgraph(ch)) { printf ("%c ",ch); } } printf ("\n\nVALID CHARACTERS FROM isalnum:\n\n"); for (allchars) { if (isalnum(ch)) { printf ("%c ",ch); } } printf ("\n\nVALID CHARACTERS FROM isalpha:\n\n"); for (allchars) { if (isalpha(ch)) { printf ("%c ",ch); } } printf ("\n\nVALID CHARACTERS FROM isupper:\n\n"); for (allchars) { if (isupper(ch))

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{ printf ("%c ",ch); } } printf ("\n\nVALID CHARACTERS FROM islower:\n\n"); for (allchars) { if (islower(ch)) { printf ("%c ",ch); } } printf ("\n\nVALID CHARACTERS FROM isdigit:\n\n"); for (allchars) { if (isdigit(ch)) { printf ("%c ",ch); } } printf ("\n\nVALID CHARACTERS FROM isxdigit:\n\n"); for (allchars) { if (isxdigit(ch)) { printf ("%c ",ch); } } printf ("\n\nVALID CHARACTERS FROM ispunct:\n\n"); for (allchars) { if (ispunct(ch)) { printf ("%c ",ch); } } printf ("\n\n"); return 0; } The output of the above code example is as follows: VALID CHARACTERS FROM isgraph: ! " # $ % & ( ) * + , - . / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ? @ A B C D

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E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z { | } ~ VALID CHARACTERS FROM isalnum: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z VALID CHARACTERS FROM isalpha: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z VALID CHARACTERS FROM isupper: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z VALID CHARACTERS FROM islower: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z VALID CHARACTERS FROM isdigit: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 VALID CHARACTERS FROM isxdigit: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F a b c d e f VALID CHARACTERS FROM ispunct: ! " # $ % & ( ) * + , - . / : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ _ { | } ~

13.4 Mathematical functions

Let us now examine some simple math library functions. (This section presupposes some familiarity on your part with trigonometry. If you have none, you might want to skip this section for now but reading it wont hurt you!) The following mathematical functions, among others, are available on GNU systems. Many of the functions described below are macros, so the usual caveats about macro parameters apply. (See Section 12.2.1 [Macro functions], page 76.) All of these functions require parameters of type double or long float. Constants used must be written in oating point form: for instance, write 7.0 instead of just 7. Here is a list of some functions you can expect to nd in the headers math.h, tgmath.h, and limits.h.

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abs acos asin atan atan2

Returns the unsigned value of the parameter in brackets. This function is a macro; see fabs for a proper function version. Returns the arccosine (or inverse cosine) of the parameter, which must lie between -1.0 and +1.0 inclusive. (The result is always in radians.) Returns the arcsine (or inverse sine) of the parameter, which must lie between -1.0 and +1.0 inclusive. (The result is always in radians.) Returns the arctangent (or inverse tangent) of the parameter. (The result is always in radians.) This is a special function for calculating the inverse tangent of the second parameter divided by the rst. atan2 will nd the result more accurately than atan will. result = atan2 (x, y); result = atan2 (x, 3.14); Returns the ceiling for the parameter: that is, the integer just above it. In eect, rounds the parameter up. Returns the cosine of the parameter in radians. (The parameter is also assumed to be specied in radians.) Returns the hyperbolic cosine of the parameter. Returns the exponential function of the parameter (i.e. e to the power of the parameter). Returns the absolute or unsigned value of the parameter in brackets. This is the version that is a proper function; see abs if you want one that is a macro. Returns the oor for the parameter: that is, the integer just below it. In eect, rounds the parameter down to the nearest integer value, i.e. truncates it. Returns the natural logarithm of the parameter. The parameter used must be greater than zero, but does not have to be declared as unsigned. Returns the base 10 logarithm of the parameter. The parameter used must be greater than zero, but does not have to be declared as unsigned. Returns the rst parameter raised to the power of the second. result = pow (x,y); /*raise x to the power y */ result = pow (x,2); /* square x */ Returns the sine of the parameter in radians. (The parameter is also assumed to be specied in radians.) Returns the hyperbolic sine of the parameter. (Pronounced shine or sinch.) Returns the positive square root of the parameter. Returns the tangent of the parameter in radians. (The parameter is also assumed to be specied in radians.) Returns the hyperbolic tangent of the parameter.

ceil cos cosh exp fabs floor log log10 pow

sin sinh sqrt tan tanh

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Here is a code example that uses a few of the math library routines listed above. #include <stdio.h> #include <math.h> int main() { double my_pi; my_pi = 4 * atan(1.0); /* Print the value of pi we just calculated, to 32 digits. */ printf ("my_pi = %.32f\n", my_pi); /* Print value of pi from math library, to 32 digits. */ printf ("M_PI = %.32f\n", M_PI); return 0; } If you save the above example as pi.c, you will have to enter a command such as the one below to compile it. gcc pi.c -o pi -lm When you compile and run the code example, it should print the following results: my_pi = 3.14159265358979311599796346854419 M_PI = 3.14159265358979311599796346854419

13.5 Questions for Chapter 13

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. How do you incorporate a library le into a C program? Name the most commonly used library le in C. Is it possible to dene new functions with the same names as standard library functions? What type of data is returned from mathematical functions? True or false? All mathematical calculations are performed using doubles. Name ve kinds of error which can occur in a mathematical function.

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14 Arrays
Rows and tables of storage. Suppose you have a long list of numbers, but you dont want to assign them to variables individually. For example, you are writing a simple program for a restaurant to keep a list of the amount each diner has on his or her tab, but you dont want to go through the tedium of writing a list like the following: float alfies_tab, bettys_tab, charlies_tab . . . ; alfies_tab = 88.33; bettys_tab = 17.23; charlies_tab = 55.55; etc. A list like that could run to hundreds or thousands of entries, and for each diner youd have to write special-case code referring to every diners data individually. No, what you really want is a single table in which you can nd the tab corresponding to a particular diner. You can then look up the tab of the diner with dining club card number 7712 in row number 7712 of the table much more easily. This is why arrays were invented. Arrays are a convenient way to group many variables under a single variable name. They are like pigeonholes, with each compartment storing a single value. Arrays can be one-dimensional like a list, two-dimensional like a chessboard, or three-dimensional like an apartment building in fact, they can have any arbitrary dimensionality, including ones humans cannot visualise easily. An array is dened using square brackets [...]. For example: an array of three integers called my_list would be declared thus: int my_list[3]; This statement would cause space for three adjacent integers to be created in memory, as in the diagram below. Notice that there is no space between the name of the array above (my_array) and the opening square bracket [. -----------------------------------my_list: | | | | -----------------------------------The number in the square brackets of the declaration is referred to as the subscript of the array, and it must be an integer greater than or equal to zero. The three integer pigeonholes in the above array are called its locations, and the values lling them are called the arrays elements. The position of an element in the array is called its index (the plural is indices). In the following example, 5, 17, and 23 are the arrays elements, and 0, 1, and 2 are its corresponding indices. Notice also that although we are creating space for three integers, arrays in C are zerobased, so the indices of the array run (0, 1, 2). If arrays in C were one-based, the indices would run (1, 2, 3).

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int my_list[3]; my_list[0] = 5; my_list[1] = 17; my_list[2] = 23; The above example would result in an array that looks like the following diagram. (Of course, an array is merely an arrangement of bytes in the computers memory, so it does not look like much of anything, literally speaking.) index: 0 1 2 -----------------------------------my_list: | 5 | 17 | 23 | -----------------------------------Note that every element in an array must be of the same type, for example, integer. It is not possible in C to have arrays that contain multiple data types. However, if you want an array with multiple data types, you might instead be able to use multiple arrays of dierent data types that contain the same number of elements. For example, to continue our restaurant tab example above, one array, diner_names might contain a list of the names of the diners. If you are looking for a particular diner, say Xavier Nougat, you might nd that the index of his name in diner_names is 7498. If you have programmed an associated oating-point array called diner_tabs, you might look up element 7498 in that array and nd that his tab is $99.34.

14.1 Array bounds

In keeping with Cs free-wheeling, I assume you know what youre doing policy, the compiler does not complain if you try to write to elements of an array that do not exist. For example, the code below denes an array with ve elements. (Remember, C arrays are zero-based.) char my_array[4]; Given the line of code below, your program will happily try to write the character * at location 10000. Unfortunately, as may happen when writing to an uninitialized pointer, this may crash the program, but will probably do nothing worse on a GNU system. (See Section 9.3 [Pointers and initialization], page 51.) my_array[10000] = *; The rst and last positions in an array are called its bounds. Remember that the bounds of an array are zero and the integer that equals the number of elements it contains, minus one. Although C will not warn you at compile-time when you exceed the bounds of an array, the debugger can tell you at run-time. See Section 23.5 [Introduction to GDB], page 239, for more information.

14.2 Arrays and for loops

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When you declare an array, the computer allocates a block of memory for it, but the block contains garbage (random values). Therefore, before using an array, you should initialise it. It is usually a good idea to set all elements in the array to zero. The easiest way to initialise an array is with a for loop. The following example loops through every element in the array my_array and sets each to zero. Remember, because arrays in C are zero-based, the indices of the array my_array in the example below run 0 through 9, rather than 1 through 10. The eect is the same, however: an array of ARRAY_SIZE (that is, 10) elements. #include <stdio.h> #define ARRAY_SIZE 10 int main () { int index, my_array[ARRAY_SIZE]; for (index = 0; index < ARRAY_SIZE; index++) { my_array[index] = 0; printf ("my_array[%d] = %d\n", index, my_array[index]); } printf("\n"); return 0; } The output from the above example is as follows: my_array[0] my_array[1] my_array[2] my_array[3] my_array[4] my_array[5] my_array[6] my_array[7] my_array[8] my_array[9] = = = = = = = = = = 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

You can use similar code to ll the array with dierent values. The following code example is nearly identical to the one above, but the line my_array[index] = index; lls each element of the array with its own index:

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#include <stdio.h> #define ARRAY_SIZE 5 int main () { int index, my_array[ARRAY_SIZE]; for (index = 0; index < ARRAY_SIZE; index++) { my_array[index] = index; printf ("my_array[%d] = %d\n", index, my_array[index]); } printf("\n"); return 0; } The output is as follows: my_array[0] = 0 my_array[1] = 1 my_array[2] = 2 my_array[3] = 3 my_array[4] = 4 Here is a humans-eye view of the internal representation of the array (how the array "looks" to the computer): index 0 1 2 3 4 ------------------element | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ------------------You can use loops to do more than initialize an array. The next code example demonstrates the use of for loops with an array to nd prime numbers. The example uses a mathematical device called the Sieve of Erastosthenes. Erastosthenes of Cyrene discovered that one can nd all prime numbers by rst writing down a list of integers from 2 (the rst prime number) up to some arbitrary number, then deleting all multiples of 2 (which are by denition not prime numbers), nding the next undeleted number after 2 (which is 3), deleting all its multiples, nding the next undeleted number after that (5), deleting all its multiples, and so on. When you have nished this process, all numbers that remain are primes. The following code example creates a Sieve of Erastosthenes for integers up to 4999, initializes all elements with 1, then deletes all composite (non-prime) numbers by replacing the elements that have an index equal to the composite with the macro DELETED, which equals 0. #include <stdio.h> #define ARRAY_SIZE 5000 #define DELETED 0 int sieve[ARRAY_SIZE];

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int main () { printf ("Results of Sieve of Erastosthenes:\n\n"); fill_sieve(); delete_nonprimes(); print_primes(); }

fill_sieve () { int index; for (index = 2; index < ARRAY_SIZE; index++) sieve[index] = 1; }

delete_nonprimes () { int index; for (index = 2; index < ARRAY_SIZE; index++) { if (sieve[index] != DELETED) delete_multiples_of_prime (index); } }

delete_multiples_of_prime (int prime) { int index, multiplier = 2;

for (index = prime * multiplier; index < ARRAY_SIZE; index = prime * multiplier++) sieve[index] = DELETED; }

print_primes () { int index; for (index = 2; index < ARRAY_SIZE; index++) { if (sieve[index] != DELETED)

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printf ("%d ", index); } printf("\n\n"); } Part of the output from the above program is shown below, for values up to 500. (The full output is considerably longer.) Results of Sieve of Erastosthenes: 2 3 101 193 293 409 5 7 103 197 307 419 11 13 17 19 107 109 113 199 211 223 311 313 317 421 431 433 23 29 31 37 127 131 137 227 229 233 331 337 347 439 443 449 41 43 47 53 139 149 151 239 241 251 349 353 359 457 461 463 59 61 67 71 157 163 167 257 263 269 367 373 379 467 479 487 73 79 83 89 173 179 181 271 277 281 383 389 397 491 499 ... 97 191 283 401

14.3 Multidimensional arrays

Suppose that you are writing a chess-playing program like GNU Chess (http://www.gnu.org/software/ A chessboard is an 8-by-8 grid. What data structure would you use to represent it? You could use an array that has a chessboard-like structure, that is, a two-dimensional array, to store the positions of the chess pieces. Two-dimensional arrays use two indices to pinpoint an individual element of the array. This is very similar to what is called algebraic notation, already commonly used in chess circles to record games and chess problems. In principle, there is no limit to the number of subscripts (or dimensions) an array can have. Arrays with more than one dimension are called multidimensional arrays. Although humans cannot easily visualize objects with more than three dimensions, representing multidimensional arrays presents no problem to computers. In practice, however, the amount of memory in a computer tends to place limits on how large an array can be. For example, a simple four-dimensional array of double-precision numbers, merely twenty elements wide in each dimension, already takes up 204 8, or 1,280,000 bytes of memory about a megabyte. (Each element of the array takes up 8 bytes, because doubles are 64 bits wide. See Section 5.1.2 [Floating point variables], page 21, for more information.) You can declare an array of two dimensions as follows: variable type array name[size1][size2] In the above example, variable type is the name of some type of variable, such as int. Also, size1 and size2 are the sizes of the arrays rst and second dimensions, respectively. Here is an example of dening an 8-by-8 array of integers, similar to a chessboard. Remember, because C arrays are zero-based, the indices on each side of the chessboard array run 0 through 7, rather than 1 through 8. The eect is the same, however: a two-dimensional array of 64 elements. int chessboard[8][8]; To pinpoint an element in this grid, simply supply the indices in both dimensions. Every element in this grid needs two indices to pin-point it. Normally, C programmers think of element 0,0 of a two-dimensional array as being the upper-left corner. The

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computer, however, knows nothing of left and right, and for our purposes (attempting to conform to international chess notation), it makes more sense to mentally op the array vertically so that element 0,0 is the lower-left corner of the board, and 7,7 the upper-right. Thus, the rst index gives the row number for the grid and the second index gives the column number. For example, 1,0 is the square directly above the lower-left corner. Suppose that a value of 1 for an array location means a the chess king is on the space in question. To indicate the White kings usual position (that is, square a5 in algebraic chess notation or 0,4 in our zero-based integer notation), you would write this: chessboard[0][4] = 1; Since computer memory is essentially one-dimensional, with memory locations running straight from 0 up through the highest location in memory, a multidimensional array cannot be stored in memory as a grid. Instead, the array is dissected and stored in rows. Consider the following two-dimensional array. ----------row 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ----------row 1 | 4 | 5 | 6 | ----------row 2 | 7 | 8 | 9 | ----------Note that the numbers inside the boxes are not the actual indices of the array, which is two-dimensional and has two indices for each element, but only arbitrary placeholders to enable you to see which elements correspond in the following example. The row numbers do correspond to the rst index of the array, so they are numbered from 0 to 2 rather than 1 to 3. To the computer, the array above actually looks like this: -----------------------------------| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | -----------------------------------| row 0 | row 1 | row 2 | Another way of saying that arrays are stored by row is that the second index varies fastest. A two-dimensional array is always thought of as follows: array name[row][column] Every row stored will contain elements of many columns. The column index runs from 0 to size - 1 inside every row in the one-dimensional representation (where size is the number of columns in the array), so the column index is changing faster than the row index, as the one-dimensional representation of the array inside the computer is traversed. You can represent a three-dimensional array, such as a cube, in a similar way: variable type array name[size1][size2][size3] Arrays do not have to be shaped like squares and cubes; you can give each dimension of the array a dierent size, as follows: int non_cube[2][6][8]; Three-dimensional arrays (and higher) are stored in the same basic way as two-dimensional ones. They are kept in computer memory as a linear sequence of variables, and the last index is always the one that varies fastest (then the next-to-last, and so on).

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14.4 Arrays and nested loops

To initialize multidimensional arrays, you can use nested for loops. Three nested loops are needed to initialize a three-dimensional array: #include <stdio.h> #define SIZE1 3 #define SIZE2 3 #define SIZE3 3 int main () { int fast, faster, fastest; int my_array[SIZE1][SIZE2][SIZE3]; for (fast = 0; fast < SIZE1; fast++) { for (faster = 0; faster < SIZE2; faster++) { for (fastest = 0; fastest < SIZE3; fastest++) { my_array[fast][faster][fastest] = 0; printf("my_array[%d][%d][%d] DONE\n", fast, faster, fastest); } } } printf("\n"); } In this example, the variables fast, faster, and fastest contain the indices of the array, and vary fast, faster, and fastest, respectively. In the example output below, you can see that the fastest index changes every line, while the faster index changes every three lines, and the fast index changes only every nine lines. my_array[0][0][0] my_array[0][0][1] my_array[0][0][2] my_array[0][1][0] my_array[0][1][1] my_array[0][1][2] my_array[0][2][0] my_array[0][2][1] my_array[0][2][2] my_array[1][0][0] my_array[1][0][1] my_array[1][0][2] my_array[1][1][0] my_array[1][1][1] my_array[1][1][2] DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE

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my_array[1][2][0] my_array[1][2][1] my_array[1][2][2] my_array[2][0][0] my_array[2][0][1] my_array[2][0][2] my_array[2][1][0] my_array[2][1][1] my_array[2][1][2] my_array[2][2][0] my_array[2][2][1] my_array[2][2][2]

DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE

Note: Although in this example we have followed the order in which indices vary inside the computer, you do not have to do so in your own code. For example, we could have switched the nesting of the innermost fastest and outermost fast loops, and every element would still have been initialized. It is better, however, to be systematic about initializing multidimensional arrays.

14.5 Initializing arrays

As mentioned above, you must initialize your arrays or they will contain garbage. There are two main ways to do so. The rst is by assigning values to array elements individually, either as shown in the example below, or with for loops. (See Section 14.2 [Arrays and for loops], page 93, above.) my_array[0] my_array[1] my_array[2] my_array[3] ... = = = = 42; 52; 23; 100;

The second method is more ecient and less tedious. It uses a single assignment operator (=) and a few curly brackets ({...}). Recall that arrays are stored by row, with the last index varying fastest. A 3 by 3 array could be initialized in the following way: int my_array[3][3] = { {10, 23, 42}, {1, 654, 0}, {40652, 22, 0} }; Here is a small program that uses the above initialization:

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#include <stdio.h> int main() { int row, column; int my_array[3][3] = { {10, 23, 42}, {1, 654, 0}, {40652, 22, 0} }; for (row = 0; row <=2; row++) { for (column = 0; column <= 2; column++) { printf("%d\t", my_array[row][column]); } printf("\n"); } printf("\n"); return 0; } The internal curly brackets are unnecessary, but they help to distinguish the rows of the array. The following code has the same eect as the rst example: int my_array[3][3] = { 10, 23, 42, 1, 654, 0, 40652, 22, 0 }; The same array initialization could even be written this way: int my_array[3][3] = {10, 23, 42, 1, 654, 0, 40652, 22, 0}; Using any of these three array initializations, the program above will print the following text: 10 1 40652 23 654 22 42 0 0

Note 1: Be careful to place commas after every array element except the last one before a closing curly bracket (}). Be sure you also place a semicolon after the nal curly bracket of an array initializer, since here curly brackets are not delimiting a code block.

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Note 2: All the expressions in an array initializer must be constants, not variables; that is, values such as 235 and q are acceptable, depending on the type of the array, but expressions such as the integer variable my_int are not.

Note 3: If there are not enough expressions in the array initializer to ll the array, the remaining elements will be set to 0 if the array is static, but will be lled with garbage otherwise.

14.6 Arrays as Parameters

There will be times when you want to pass an array as a parameter to a function. (For example, you might want to pass an array of numbers to a function that will sort them.)

In the following example, notice how the array my_array in main is passed to the function multiply as an actual parameter with the name my_array, but that the formal parameter in the multiply function is dened as int *the_array: that is, an integer pointer. This is the basis for much that you will hear spoken about the equivalence of pointers and arrays much that is best ignored until you have more C programming experience. The important thing to understand is that arrays passed as parameters are considered to be pointers by the functions receiving them. Therefore, they are always variable parameters, which means that other functions can modify the original copy of the variable, just as the function multiply does with the array my_array below. (See Chapter 8 [Parameters], page 41.)

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#include <stdio.h> void multiply (int *, int);

int main() { int index; int my_array[5] = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4}; multiply (my_array, 2); for (index = 0; index < 5; index++) printf("%d ", my_array[index]); printf("\n\n"); return 0; }

void multiply (int *the_array, int multiplier) { int index; for (index = 0; index < 5; index++) the_array[index] *= multiplier; } Even though the function multiply is declared void and therefore does not return a result, it can still modify my_array directly, because it is a variable parameter. Therefore, the result of the program above is as follows: 0 2 4 6 8 If you nd the interchangeability of arrays and pointers as formal parameters in function declarations to be confusing, you can always avoid the use of pointers, and declare formal parameters to be arrays, as in the new version of the multiply function below. The result is the same. void multiply (int the_array[], int multiplier) { int index; for (index = 0; index < 5; index++) the_array[index] *= multiplier; }

14.7 Questions for Chapter 14

1. Declare an array of type double, measuring 4 by 5 elements. 2. How do you pass an array as a parameter?

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3. When an array parameter is received by a function, does C allocate space for a local variable and copy the whole array to the new location? 4. What does it mean to say that one dimension of an array varies fastest? 5. Which dimension of an array varies fastest, the rst or the last?

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15 Strings
Communication using arrays. So far we have examined variables that can contain integers, oating-point numbers, and values that represent individual text characters. But what if you need a variable that can contain a sequence of text characters, such as a name in a database of diners at a restaurant, as in the examples for last chapter? Thats where strings and string variables come in. A string value is a sequence of text characters that can become a value for a string variable. Both a string value and a string variable can be referred to as a string, depending on context. In C, a string value is represented by text characters enclosed by double quotes: "This is a string value." A string can contain any character, including special control characters, such as the tab character \t, the newline character \n, the bell character \7 (which causes the terminal to beep when it is displayed), and so on. We have been using string values since we introduced the printf command early in the book. (See Chapter 3 [The form of a C program], page 9.) To cause your terminal to beep twice, include the following statement in a C program: printf("This is a string value. Beep! Beep! \7\7");

15.1 Conventions and declarations

Do not confuse strings in C with individual characters. By convention, individual characters are enclosed in single quotes, like this: a, and have the variable type char. On the other hand, string values are enclosed in double quotes, like this: "abcdefg". String variables are either arrays of type char or have the type pointer to char, that is, char *. Conceptually, a string is an array of characters (type char). In C, string variables can theoretically be of any length, unlike languages such as Pascal where strings hold a maximum of 255 characters. However, the length of the string value is determined by the position of the rst null character (/0) in the string. Even though a string variable might be 32,000 characters long, or longer, if the null character rst appears at position 5 in the character array, the string value is considered to be of length 5 (and contains the characters in positions 0 through 4, in sequence). You will rarely need to consider this end marker, as most functions in Cs string library add it or remove it automatically.

15.2 Initializing strings

Initializing string variables (or character arrays) with string values is in many ways even easier than initializing other kinds of arrays. There are three main ways of assigning string constants to string variables. (A string constant is a string value that was typed into the source code, as opposed to one that is generated by the program or entered by the user.)

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#include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> int main() { /* Example 1 */ char string1[] = "A string declared as an array.\n"; /* Example 2 */ char *string2 = "A string declared as a pointer.\n"; /* Example 3 */ char string3[30]; strcpy(string3, "A string constant copied in.\n"); printf (string1); printf (string2); printf (string3); return 0; } 1. char string1[] = "A string declared as an array.\n"; This is usually the best way to declare and initialize a string. The character array is declared explicitly. There is no size declaration for the array; just enough memory is allocated for the string, because the compiler knows how long the string constant is. The compiler stores the string constant in the character array and adds a null character (\0) to the end. 2. char *string2 = "A string declared as a pointer.\n"; The second of these initializations is a pointer to an array of characters. Just as in the last example, the compiler calculates the size of the array from the string constant and adds a null character. The compiler then assigns a pointer to the rst character of the character array to the variable string2. Note: Most string functions will accept strings declared in either of these two ways. Consider the printf statements at the end of the example program above the statements to print the variables string1 and string2 are identical. 3. char string3[30]; Declaring a string in this way is useful when you dont know what the string variable will contain, but have a general idea of the length of its contents (in this case, the string can be a maximum of 30 characters long). The drawback is that you will either have to use some kind of string function to assign the variable a value, as the next line of code does ( strcpy(string3, "A string constant copied in.\n");), or you will have to assign the elements of the array the hard way, character by character. (See Section 15.4 [String library functions], page 108, for more information on the function strcpy.)

15.3 String arrays

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Suppose you want to print out a screenful of text instead of a single line. You could use one long character array, interspersed with \n characters where you want the lines to break, but you might nd it easier to use a string array. A string array is an array of strings, which, of course, are themselves arrays of characters; in eect, a string array is a two-dimensional character array. Just as there are easy methods of initializing integer arrays, oat arrays, strings, and so on, there is also an easy way of initializing string arrays. For example, here is a sample program which prints out a menu for a full application program. Thats all it does, but you might imagine that when the user chooses 3 in the full program, the application invokes the function calculate_bill we examined earlier. (See Chapter 8 [Parameters], page 41.) #include <stdio.h> char *menu[] = { " -------------------------------------- ", " | ++ MENU ++ |", " | ~~~~~~~~~~~~ |", " | (0) Edit Preferences |", " | (1) Print Charge Sheet |", " | (2) Print Log Sheet |", " | (3) Calculate Bill |", " | (q) Quit |", " | |", " | |", " | Please enter choice below. |", " | |", " -------------------------------------- " };

int main() { int line_num; for (line_num = 0; line_num < 13; line_num++) { printf ("%s\n", menu[line_num]); } return 0; } Notice that the string array menu is declared char *menu[]. This method of dening a two-dimensional string array is a combination of methods 1 and 2 for initializing strings from the last section. (See Section 15.2 [Initializing strings], page 105.) This is the most convenient method; if you try to dene menu with char menu[][], the compiler will return an unspecied bounds error. You can get around this by declaring the second subscript

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of menu explicitly (e.g. char menu[][80]), but that necessitates you know the maximum length of the strings you are storing in the array, which is something you may not know and that it may be tedious to nd out. The elements of menu are initialized with string constants in the same way that an integer array, for example, is initialized with integers, separating each element with a comma. (See Section 14.5 [Initializing arrays], page 99.)

15.4 String library functions

The GNU C Library provides a number of very useful functions which handle strings. Here is a list of the more common ones. To use the functions beginning with ato, you must include the header le stdlib.h; to use the functions beginning with str, you must include the header le string.h. atof Converts an ASCII string to its oating-point equivalent; for example, converts -23.5 to the value -23.5. #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> int main() { double my_value; char my_string[] = "+1776.23"; my_value = atof(my_string); printf("%f\n", my_value); return 0; } The output from the above code is 1776.230000. atoi Converts an ASCII string to its integer equivalent; for example, converts -23.5 to the value -23. int my_value; char my_string[] = "-23.5"; my_value = atoi(my_string); printf("%d\n", my_value); atol Converts an ASCII string to its long integer equivalent; for example, converts +2000000000 to the value 2000000000. long my_value; char my_string[] = "+2000000000"; my_value = atol(my_string); printf("%ld\n", my_value); strcat Concatenates two strings: that is, joins them together into one string. Example: char string1[50] = "Hello, "; char string2[] = "world!\n"; strcat (string1, string2); printf (string1);

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The example above attaches the contents of string2 to the current contents of string1. The array string1 then contains the string Hello, world!\n. Notice that string1 was declared to be 50 characters long, more than enough to contain the initial values of both string1 and string2. You must be careful to allocate enough space in the string variable that will receive the concatenated data; otherwise, your program is likely to crash. Again, on a GNU system, although your program wont run, nothing more drastic than an error message from the operating system is likely to occur in such a case. strcmp Compares two strings and returns a value that indicates which string comes rst alphabetically. Example: int comparison; char string1[] = "alpha"; char string2[] = "beta"; comparison = strcmp (string1, string2); printf ("%d\n", comparison); If the two strings are identical, strcmp returns 0. If the rst string passed to strcmp comes alphabetically before the second (that is, the rst string is less than the second one), strcmp returns a value less than 0. If the rst string comes alphabetically after the second one (that is, the rst string is greater than the second one), strcmp returns a value greater than zero. (Note that numbers come before letters in ASCII, and upper-case letters come before lower-case ones.) The example above prints out -1, because alpha is alphabetically less than beta. In all cases below, string1 comes alphabetically before string2, so strcmp(string1, string2) returns a negative value. string1 aaa aaa aa string2 aab aaba aaa

strcpy Copies a string into a string variable. Example: char dest_string[50]; char source_string[] = "Are we not men?"; /* Example 1 */ strcpy (dest_string, source_string); printf ("%s\n", dest_string); /* Example 2 */ strcpy (dest_string, "Are we having fun yet?"); printf ("%s\n", dest_string); The example above produces this output: Are we not men? Are we having fun yet? Notes:

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The destination string in strcmp comes rst, then the source string. This works in exactly the opposite way from the GNU/Linux shell command, cp. You can use strcmp to copy one string variable into another (Example 1), or to copy a string constant into a string variable (Example 2). Note the use of the characters %s in the printf statements to display a string, rather than %d to display an integer or %f to display a oat. strlen Returns an integer that gives the length of a string in characters, not including the null character at the end of the string. The following example displays the number 5. int string_length char my_string[] = "fnord"; string_length = strlen (my_string); printf ("%d\n", string_length); strncat Works like strcat, but concatenates only a specied number of characters. The example below displays the string Hello, world! Bye. char string1[50] = "Hello, world! "; char string2[] = "Bye now!"; strncat (string1, string2, 3); printf ("%s\n", string1); strncmp Works like strcmp, but compares only a specied number of characters of both strings. The example below displays 0, because dogberry and dogwood are identical for their rst three characters. int comparison; char string1[] = "dogberry"; char string2[] = "dogwood"; comparison = strncmp (string1, string2, 3); printf ("%d\n", comparison); strncpy Works like strcpy, but copies only a specied number of characters. The example below displays the string Are we, because only the rst six characters of source_string are being copied into dest_string. char dest_string[50]; char source_string[] = "Are we not men?"; strncpy (dest_string, source_string, 6); printf ("%s\n", dest_string); Note: As in strcmp, the destination string in strncmp comes rst, then the source string. This works in exactly the opposite way from the GNU/Linux shell command, cp. strstr Tests whether a substring is present in a larger string. Returns a pointer to the rst occurrence of the substring in the larger string, or zero if the substring is not present. (When the substring is empty, strstr returns a pointer to the rst character of the larger string.) The example below displays foo is a substring of Got food?..

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char string1[] = "Got food?"; char string2[] = "foo"; if (strstr (string1, string2)) printf("%s is a substring of %s.\n", string2, string1);

15.5 Questions for Chapter 15

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What are the three main ways of initializing string variables? How would you declare an array of strings? What information is returned by strlen? What does the function strcat do? How about strncat? Rewrite the Morse coder program more eciently, using static strings. (See Section 10.6 [Example 15], page 60, for the original version.)

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16 Input and output

Input and output. Talking to the user. Why your printer is a le. In order for a program to do anything useful, it usually must do some kind of input and output, whether input from the keyboard and output to the screen, or input from and output to the computers hard disk. While the C language itself does not provide much in the way of input and output functions, the GNU C Library contains so many facilities for input and output that a whole book could be written about them. In this chapter, we will focus on the basics. For more information on the functions described in this chapter, and many more, we urge you to consult undened [Table of Contents], page undened . Most objects from which you can receive input and to which you can send output on a GNU system are considered to be les not only are les on your hard disk (such as object code les, C source code les, and ordinary ASCII text les) considered to be les, but also such peripherals as your printer, your keyboard, and your computer monitor. When you write a C program that prompts the user for input from the keyboard, your program is reading from, or accepting input from, the keyboard, in much the same way that it would read a text string from a text le. Similarly, when your C program displays a text string on the users monitor, it is writing to, or sending output to, the terminal, just as though it were writing a text string to a text le. In fact, in many cases youll be using the very same functions to read text from the keyboard and from text les, and to write text to the terminal and to text les. This curious fact will be explored later in the chapter. For now it is sucient to say that when C treats your computers peripherals as les, they are known as devices, and each one has its own name, called a device name or pseudo-device name. On a GNU system, the printer might be called /dev/lp0 (for device line printer zero) and the rst oppy drive might be called /dev/fd0 (for device oppy drive zero). (Why zero in both cases? Most objects in the GNU environment are counted by starting with zero, rather than one just as arrays in C are zero-based.) The advantage of treating devices as les is that it is often not necessary to know how a particular device works, only that it is connected to the computer and can be written to or read from. For example, C programs often get their input from the keyboard, which C refers to with the le name stdin (for standard input), and C programs often send their output to the monitors text display, referred to as stdout. In some cases, stdin and stdout may refer to things other than the keyboard and monitor; for example, the user may be redirecting the output from your program to a text le with the > command in GNU/Linux. The beauty of the way the standard input/output library handles things is that your program will work just the same. Before you can read from or write to a le, you must rst connect to it, or open it, usually by either the fopen command, which returns its stream, or the open command, which returns its le descriptor. You can open a le for reading, writing, or both. You can also open a le for appending, that is, writing data after the current end of the le. Files are made known to functions not by their le names, except in a few cases, but by identiers called streams or le descriptors. For example, printf uses a stream as an identier, not the name of the le. So does fclose:

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fprintf (my_stream, "Just a little hello from fprintf.\n"); close_error = fclose (my_stream); On the other hand, fopen takes a name, and returns a stream: my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "w"); This is how you map from names to streams or le descriptors: you open the le (for reading, writing, or both, or for appending), and the value returned from the open or fopen function is the appropriate le descriptor or stream. You can operate on a le either at a high level or at a low level. Operating on a le at a high level means that you are using the le at a high level of abstraction. (See Chapter 1 [Introduction], page 1, to refresh your memory about the distinction between high and low levels of abstraction.) Using high-level functions is usually safer and more convenient than using low-level functions, so we will mostly concern ourselves with high-level functions in this chapter, although we will touch on some low-level functions toward the end. A high-level connection opened to a le is called a stream. A low-level connection to a le is called a le descriptor. Streams and le descriptors have dierent data types, as we shall see. You must pass either a stream or a le descriptor to most input/output functions, to tell them which le they are operating on. Certain functions (usually high-level ones) expect to be passed streams, while others (usually low-level ones) expect le descriptors. A few functions will accept a simple lename instead of a stream or le descriptor, but generally these are only the functions that initialize streams or le descriptors in the rst place. You may consider it a nuisance to have to use a stream or a le descriptor to access your le when a simple le name would seem to suce, but these two mechanisms allow a level of abstraction to exist between your code and your les. Remember the black box analogy we explored at the beginning of the book. By using the data in les only through streams or le descriptors, we are guaranteed the ability to write a rich variety of functions that can exploit the behavior of these two black box abstractions. Interestingly enough, although streams are considered to be for high-level input/output, and le descriptors for low-level I/O, and GNU systems support both, more Unix-like systems support streams than le descriptors. You can expect any system running ISO C to support streams, but non-GNU systems may not support le descriptors at all, or may only implement a subset of the GNU functions that operate on le descriptors. Most of the le descriptor functions in the GNU library are included in the POSIX.1 standard, however. Once you have nished your input and output operations on the le, you must terminate your connection to it. This is called closing the le. Once you have closed a le, you cannot read from or write to it anymore until you open it again. In summary, to use a le, a program must go through the following routine: Open the le for reading, writing, or both. Read from or write to the le as appropriate, using le-handling functions provided by the GNU C Library. Close the le

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16.1 High-level le routines

You can recognise most of the high-level input/output functions that operate on les because they begin with the letter f; for example, the high-level function for opening a le called fopen, as opposed to the low-level le-opening function open. Some of them are more generalized versions of functions with which you may already be familiar; for example, the function fprintf behaves like the familiar printf, but takes an additional parameter a stream and sends all its output to that stream instead of simply sending its output to stdout, as printf does.

16.1.1 Opening a le
The main high-level function for opening les is fopen. When you open a le with the fopen function, the GNU C Library creates a new stream and creates a connection between the stream and a le. If you pass this function the name of a le that does not exist, that le will be created. The fopen function normally returns a stream. A stream is a ow of data from a source to a destination within a GNU system. Programs can read characters from or write characters to a stream without knowing either the source or destination of the data, which may be a le on disk, a device such as a terminal meant as a human interface, or something entirely dierent. Streams are represented by variables of type FILE * fopen will return a null pointer if it fails to open the le. The rst parameter to this function is a string containing the lename of the le to open. The lename string can be either a constant or a variable, as in the following two equivalent examples: FILE *my_stream; my_stream = fopen ("foo", "r"); FILE *my_stream; char my_filename = "foo"; my_stream2 = fopen (my_filename, "r"); The second parameter is a string containing one of the following sets of characters: r w r+ Open the le for reading only. The le must already exist. Open the le for writing only. If the le already exists, its current contents are deleted. If the le does not already exist, it is created. Open the le for reading and writing. The le must already exist. The contents of the le are initially unchanged, but the le position is set to the beginning of the le. Open the le for both writing and reading. If the le already exists, its current contents are deleted. If the le does not already exist, it is created. Open the le for appending only. Appending to a le is the same as writing to it, except that data is only written to the current end of the le. If the le does not already exist, it is created.

w+ a

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a+

Open the le for both appending and reading. If the le exists, its contents are unchanged until appended to. If the le does not exist, it is created. The initial le position for reading is at the beginning of the le, but the le position for appending is at the end of the le.

See Section 16.1.4 [File position], page 120, for more information on the concept of le position. You can also append the character x after any of the strings in the table above. This character causes fopen to fail rather than opening the le if the le already exists. If you append x to any of the arguments above, you are guaranteed not to clobber (that is, accidentally destroy) any le you attempt to open. (Any other characters in this parameter are ignored on a GNU system, but may be meaningful on other systems.) The following example illustrates the proper use of fopen to open a text le for reading (as well as highlighting the fact that you should clean up after yourself by closing les after you are done with them). Try running it once, then running it a second time after creating the text le snazzyjazz.txt in the current directory with a GNU command such as touch snazzyjazz.txt. #include <stdio.h> int main() { FILE *my_stream; my_stream = fopen ("snazzyjazz.txt", "r"); if (my_stream == NULL) { printf ("File could not be opened\n"); } else { printf ("File opened! Closing it now...\n"); /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); } return 0; } See Section 16.1.2 [Closing a le], page 116, for more information on the function fclose.

16.1.2 Closing a le
The basic high-level function for closing les is fclose. Simply pass this function a stream, and fopen will close it and break the connection to the corresponding le, rst reading any buered input and writing any buered output. If the le was closed successfully, fclose will return 0; otherwise, it will return EOF. It is important to check for errors when you close a stream to which you are writing. For example, when fclose attempts to write the output remaining in its buer, it might

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generate an error because the disk is full. Following is an example of closing a le with write access, while checking for errors. #include <stdio.h> int main() { FILE *my_stream; char my_filename[] = "snazzyjazz.txt"; int close_error; my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "w"); fprintf (my_stream, "Just a little hello from fprintf.\n"); close_error = fclose (my_stream); if (close_error != 0) { printf ("File could not be closed.\n"); } else { printf ("File closed.\n"); } return 0; }

16.1.3 Block input and output

You can use the two functions in this section, fread and fwrite, to read and write text in blocks of xed size, rather than by line or character. You can also use these two functions to read and write blocks of binary data. This feature is useful if you want to read and write data in the same format used by your program. For example, you can store an entire multidimensional array of oating-point variables in a le with the fwrite command, then read it back in directly later with the fread command, without any loss of precision caused by converting the oats to strings for use with the fprintf function, for example. (The main drawback to using binary les rather than formatted ASCII text les is that you cannot easily read and edit the les you create with a text editor.) For example, to write an array called my_array, containing object_count data objects (such as integers), each of size object_size, to the stream my_stream, you might use the following line of code: fwrite (&my_array, object_size, object_count, my_stream); To read my_array back from my_stream, you might then use the following line: fread (&my_array, object_size, object_count, my_stream); Here is a short table to help you remember the directions in which fwrite and fread work. fwrite from an array, to a le

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fread

from a le, to an array

The fwrite function takes four parameters. The rst parameter to fwrite is a void pointer (void *) to an array that contains the data that will be written to the le. The second parameter is a variable of type size_t specifying the size of each object to be written, and the third parameter, also of type size_t, species the number of those objects that are to be written. The nal parameter is the stream to be written to (type FILE *). If the value returned by fopen does not match the third parameter passed (that is, the number of objects to be written), then there was an error. Like fwrite, the fread function takes four parameters. Its rst parameter is a void pointer to the array that will be written to. Its second parameter, of type size_t, species how large each object to be read is, and its third parameter, of type size_t, species how many of each object is to be read. The last parameter is simply the stream to read from. Again, if the return value of this function does not match the third parameter, which species how many object were to be read, there was an error. Here is an example that creates an array and lls it with multiples of 2, prints it out, writes the arrays data to a le with fwrite, zeroes the array and prints it out, reads the data from the le back into the array with fread, then prints the array out again so you can compare its data with the rst set of data. #include <stdio.h> int main() { int row, column; FILE *my_stream; int close_error; char my_filename[] = "my_numbers.dat"; size_t object_size = sizeof(int); size_t object_count = 25; size_t op_return; int my_array[5][5] = { 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50 }; printf ("Initial values of array:\n"); for (row = 0; row <= 4; row++) { for (column = 0; column <=4; column++) { printf ("%d } printf ("\n"); } ", my_array[row][column]);

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my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "w"); op_return = fwrite (&my_array, object_size, object_count, my_stream); if (op_return != object_count) { printf ("Error writing data to file.\n"); } else { printf ("Successfully wrote data to file.\n"); } /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); printf ("Zeroing array...\n"); for (row = 0; row <= 4; row++) { for (column = 0; column <=4; column++) { my_array[row][column] = 0; printf ("%d ", my_array[row][column]); } printf ("\n"); } printf ("Now reading data back in...\n"); my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "r"); op_return = fread (&my_array, object_size, object_count, my_stream); if (op_return != object_count) { printf ("Error reading data from file.\n"); } else { printf ("Successfully read data from file.\n"); } for (row = 0; row <= 4; row++) { for (column = 0; column <=4; column++) { printf ("%d } printf ("\n"); } /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); return 0; } ", my_array[row][column]);

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If all goes well, the code example above will produce the following output: Initial values of array: 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 Successfully wrote data to file. Zeroing array... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Now reading data back in... Successfully read data from file. 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 If you attempt to view the le my_numbers.dat produced by the program above with a GNU command such as more numbers.dat, you will see only garbage, because the information is stored in binary format, not readable by humans. After attempting to view this binary le, your terminal may continue to show only garbage and you may have to reset it. You may be able to do this with a menu option (if you are running gnome-terminal, for example), or you may have to type reset blindly.

16.1.4 File position

When a person reads a book, her location in the book can be specied by a page number (and even a line number or word number, at ner levels of detail). Just so, it is possible (and often useful!) to know the location, or le position, of a stream reading from or writing to a le. And just as we sometimes want to know which chapter a friend is currently reading in a book, or to recommend that he ip backward or forward to an interesting passage, so it is frequently useful to be able to change the current le position to access a more interesting part of the le. At the high level of the functions in this section, GNU treats all streams as streams of characters even binary streams like the one associated with the le numbers.dat in the example for fread and fwrite. (See Section 16.1.3 [Block input and output], page 117.) This means that the le position of any stream is a simple character count le position 0 means that we are reading or writing the rst character in the le, le position 522 means that we are reading the 523rd character, and so on. (Just as with arrays in C, le positions are zero-based.) Not only does the le position of a stream describe where in the le the stream is reading or writing, but reading or writing on the stream advances the le position. During high-

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level access to a le, you can change the le position at will. Any le that permits changing the le position in an arbitrary way is called a random-access le. (Many years ago, the people who invented computer jargon chose the word random to be part of the phrase random-access because, from the point of view of the computer, a random-access le can be read from or written to at any location, as if at random. Of course, programmers are not working randomly; they decide where their programs should read and write. The term RAM for random-access memory comes from the same source.) The main high-level function to tell where the current le position is, is called appropriately, ftell. It accepts a single parameter a le stream and returns a long integer representing the le position.1 (See section libc in The GNU C Library Reference Manual, for more information.) The main function to seek a dierent le position is called fseek. It accepts three parameters. The rst parameter is the stream in question, the second is a long integer oset, and the third parameter is a constant that species whether the oset is relative to the beginning of the le (SEEK_SET), to the current le position (SEEK_CUR), or to the end of the le (SEEK_END). The fseek function returns 0 if the operation was successful, or a nonzero integer value otherwise. (A successful fseek operation also clears the end-ofle indicator (see below), and discards the results of ungetc. See Section 16.3.5 [ungetc], page 148.) There is a simple macro called rewind that will take the le pointer back to the beginning of the le. You must simply pass it the stream that you want to rewind; it does not return a value. It is the same as calling fseek on the stream with an oset of 0 and a third parameter of SEEK_SET, except that it resets the error indicator for the stream and, as mentioned, there is no return value. An example of these functions will not be useful until we have introduced single-character I/O. See Section 16.3.3 [getc and fgetc], page 145, if you want to read a code example that uses the ftell, fseek, and rewind functions.

16.1.5 Stream buering

When you write characters to a stream, they are not usually stored in the le on a character-by-character basis as soon as they are written to the stream, but instead are accumulated in a buer rst, then written to the le in a block when certain conditions are met. (A buer is an area of the computers memory that acts as a temporary holding area for input or output.) Similarly, when you are reading characters from a stream, they are often buered, or stored in a buer rst. Its important to understand how buering works, or you may nd your programs behaving in an unexpected way, reading and writing characters when you do not expect them to.
1

Since the le position is a long integer, the length of a le using one of these functions cannot be any greater than the maximum value of a 32-bit long integer under GNU, plus one (since the le position is zero-based) that is, such a le cannot be any more than 2,147,483,648 bytes, or about two gigabytes long. If you need to use longer les, you can use low-level le routines, which allow for longer les and le positions through such 64-bit functions as lseek64.

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(You can bypass stream buering entirely, however, by using low-level rather than high-level le routines. See Section 16.5 [Low-level le routines], page 151, for more information.) There are three main kinds of buering you should know about: No buering: When you write characters to an unbuered stream, the operating system writes them to the le as soon as possible. Line buering: When you write characters to a line-buered stream, the operating system writes them to the le when it encounters a newline character. Full buering: When you write characters to a fully-buered stream, the operating system writes them to the le in blocks of arbitrary size. Most streams are fully buered when you open them, and this is usually the best solution. However, streams connected to interactive devices such as terminals are line-buered when you open them; yes, this means that stdin and stdout are line-buered. Having stdin and stdout be line-buered is convenient, because most meaningful chunks of data you write to them are terminated with a newline character. In order to ensure that the data you read from or write to a fully-buered stream shows up right away, use the fflush function. In the jargon, this is called ushing the stream. Flushing moves the characters from the buer to the le, if they havent already been moved. After the move, other functions can then work on the characters.2 To use fflush, simply pass the function the stream you want to ush. The fflush function returns 0 if successful, or the value EOF (which is a macro dened in the GNU C Library) if there was a write error. Note that using fflush is not always necessary; output is ushed automatically when you try to write and the output buer is already full, when the stream is closed, when the program exits, when an input operation on a stream actually reads data from the le, and of course, when a newline is written to a line-buered stream. (See Section 16.2.1.2 [fputs], page 124, for a code example that uses fflush.)

16.1.6 End-of-le and error functions

If a le has been read to its end (that is, the current le position is the end of the le), a ag indicating this, called the end-of-le indicator, will be set to TRUE. You can check whether the end-of-le indicator has been set (and therefore whether the current le position is the end of the le), with the feof function. This function takes a single argument (a stream), and returns TRUE (a nonzero value) if the end of the le has been reached, and FALSE (zero) otherwise. Another ag, the error indicator, indicates whether an error has occurred during an earlier operation on the stream. It returns TRUE if there has been an error, and FALSE
2

Strictly speaking, there are multiple levels of buering on a GNU system. Even after ushing characters to a le, data from the le may remain in memory, unwritten to disk. On GNU systems, there is an independently-running system program, or daemon, that periodically commits relevant data still in memory to disk. Under GNU/Linux, this daemon is called bdflush.

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otherwise. You can check the error indicator for a stream with the ferror function. This function takes a single argument (a stream), and returns TRUE (a nonzero value) if an error has occured during an operation on the stream, and FALSE (zero) otherwise. Unfortunately, ferror will not tell you what the error was, or when it occurred, only whether there has been an error. To get a more detailed diagnosis, you can check the global system variable errno. (See Section 16.5.1 [Usual le name errors], page 151.) It is possible to reset the error and end-of-le indicators once they have been set for a stream. To do so, simply pass the stream to the function clearerr; this will set both the error and end-of-le indicators back to 0. The clearerr function does not return a value. You should not simply reset the error ag and try a stream operation that failed a second time. Because of buering, you may lose or repeat data when writing, or access the wrong part of the le when reading. Before you try a failed stream operation again, you should seek to a known le position. (See Section 16.1.4 [File position], page 120.) However, most errors cannot be recovered from anyway trying the operation again will likely result in the same error so it is probably better to have your program report the error to the user and exit than to write complicated error-recovery routines for stream operation. An example of these functions will not be useful until we have introduced single-character I/O. See Section 16.3.3 [getc and fgetc], page 145, if you want to read a code example that uses the feof and ferror functions.

16.2 String output and input

We will now examine some high-level le functions for reading strings from and writing strings to streams. The two string output methods we will examine (puts and fputs) are very safe to use, but the input methods run from the antiquated and very dangerous gets to the safer fgets, to getline and getdelim, two GNU-specic extensions to the C language that are extremely safe to use. It is important to use the safer and better GNU functions when you can. However, you will probably still want to learn how to read and understand older (but still free) code that is unsafe (perhaps to update it and make it safe), so this book describes functions like gets despite the fact that they are unsafe.

16.2.1 Unformatted string output

The functions in this section are for output of strings to streams. They are generally very safe to use.

16.2.1.1 puts
The most convenient function for printing a simple message on standard outout is puts. It is even simpler than printf, since you do not need to include a newline character puts does that for you. Using puts couldnt be simpler. Here is an example:

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puts ("Hello, multiverse."); This code example will print the string Hello, multiverse. to standard output. The puts function is safe and simple, but not very exible. See Section 16.2.2 [Formatted string output], page 125, if you want to print fancier output.

16.2.1.2 fputs
The fputs (le put string) function is similar to the puts function in almost every respect, except that it accepts a second parameter, a stream to which to write the string. It does not add a newline character, however; it only writes the characters in the string. It returns EOF if an error occurs; otherwise it returns a non-negative integer value. Here is a brief code example that creates a text le and uses fputs to write into it the phrase If its not too late... make it a cheeseburger., followed by a newline character. This example also demonstrates the use of the fflush function. (See Section 16.1.5 [Stream buering], page 121, for more information on this function.) #include <stdio.h> int main() { FILE *my_stream; char my_filename[] = "snazzyjazz.txt"; int flush_status; my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "w"); fputs ("If its not too late... make it a cheeseburger.\n", my_stream); /* Since the stream is fully-buffered by default, not line-buffered, it needs to be flushed periodically. Well flush it here for demonstration purposes, even though were about to close it. */ flush_status = fflush (my_stream); if (flush_status != 0) { puts ("Error flushing stream!"); } else { puts ("Stream flushed."); } /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); return 0; }

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16.2.2 Formatted string output

The functions in this section are for formatted output of strings to streams. They are generally quite safe to use. Formatted output is textual output via functions such as printf or fprintf. These take as an argument a string containing special character sequences such as %d (which indicates that an integer argument will follow). After this string, other arguments that correspond to the special character sequences follow. When the functions combine these arguments, the result is formatted textual output. The next several sections discuss four formatted output functions. The most basic, printf, prints to standard output. The fprintf function is a high-level routine that sends its output to a stream, sprintf prints to a string, and asprintf is a safer way of printing to a string.

16.2.2.1 printf
If you have been reading the book closely up to this point, you have seen the use of the printf function many times. To recap, this function prints a text string to the terminal (or, to be more precise, the text stream stdout). For example, the following line of code prints the string Hello there!, followed by a newline character, to the console: printf ("Hello there!\n"); You probably also remember that you can incorporate numeric constants and variables into your strings. Consider the following code example: printf ("Im free! Im free! (So what? Im %d.)\n", 4); The previous example is equivalent to the following one: int age = 4; printf ("Im free! Im free! (So what? Im %d.)\n", age); Both of the code examples above produce the following output: Im free! Im free! (So what? Im 4.) You may recall that besides using %d with printf to print integers, we have also used %f on occasion to print oating-point numbers, and that on occasion we have used more than one argument. Consider this example: printf ("Im free! Im free! (So what? Im %d.) Well, Im %f.\n", 4, 4.5); That example produces the following output: Im free! Im free! (So what? Im 4.) Well, Im 4.500000. In fact, printf is a very exible function. The general scheme is that you provide it with a format string or template string (such as "So what? Im %d."), which can contain zero or more conversion specications, conversion speciers, or sometimes just conversions (in this case %d), and zero or more arguments (for example, 4). Each conversion specication is said to specify a conversion, that is, how to convert its corresponding argument into a printable string. After the template string, you supply one argument for each conversion specier in the template string. The printf function then prints the template string,

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including each argument as converted to a printable sub-string by its conversion specier, and returns an integer containing the number of characters printed, or a negative value if there was an error.

16.2.2.2 Formatted output conversion speciers

There are many dierent conversion speciers that can be used for various data types. Conversion speciers can become quite complex; for example, %-17.7ld species that printf should print the number left-justied (-), in a eld at least seventeen characters wide (17), with a minimum of seven digits (.7), and that the number is a long integer (l) and should be printed in decimal notation (%d). In this section, we will examine the basics of printf and its conversion speciers. (For even more detail, section Formatted Output in The GNU C Library Reference Manual.) A conversion specier begins with a percent sign, and ends with one of the following output conversion characters. The most basic conversion speciers simply use a percent sign and one of these characters, such as %d to print an integer. (Note that characters in the template string that are not part of a conversion specier are printed as-is.) c d e E f i m Print a single character. Print an integer as a signed decimal number. Print a oating-point number in exponential notation, using lower-case letters. The exponent always contains at least two digits. Example: 6.02e23. Same as e, but uses upper-case letters. Example: 6.02E23. Print a oating-point number in normal, xed-point notation. Same as d. Print the string corresponding to the specied value of the system errno variable. (See Section 16.5.1 [Usual le name errors], page 151.) GNU systems only. Print a string. Print an unsigned integer. Print an integer as an unsigned hexadecimal number, using lower-case letters. Same as x, but uses upper-case letters. Print a percent sign (%).

s u x X %

In between the percent sign (%) and the output conversion character, you can place some combination of the following modiers. (Note that the percent sign conversion (%%) doesnt use arguments or modiers.) Zero or more ag characters, from the following table: - Left-justify the number in the eld (right justication is the default). Can also be used for string and character conversions (%s and %c).

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+ Always print a plus or minus sign to indicate whether the number is positive or negative. Valid for %d, %e, %E, and %i. Space character If the number does not start with a plus or minus sign, prex it with a space character instead. This ag is ignored if the + ag is specied. # For %e, %E, and %f, forces the number to include a decimal point, even if no digits follow. For %x and %X, prexes 0x or 0X, respectively. Separate the digits of the integer part of the number into groups, using a locale-specic character. In the United States, for example, this will usually be a comma, so that one million will be rendered 1,000,000. GNU systems only. 0 Pad the eld with zeroes instead of spaces; any sign or indication of base (such as 0x) will be printed before the zeroes. This ag is ignored if the - ag or a precision is specied. In the example given above, %-17.7ld, the ag given is -. An optional non-negative decimal integer specifying the minimum eld width within which the conversion will be printed. If the conversion contains fewer characters, it will be padded with spaces (or zeroes, if the 0 ag was specied). If the conversion contains more characters, it will not be truncated, and will overow the eld. The output will be right-justied within the eld, unless the - ag was specied. In the example given above, %-17.7ld, the eld width is 17. For numeric conversions, an optional precision that species the number of digits to be written. If it is specied, it consists of a dot character (.), followed by a non-negative decimal integer (which may be omitted, and defaults to zero if it is). In the example given above, %-17.7ld, the precision is .7. Leading zeroes are produced if necessary. If you dont specify a precision, the number is printed with as many digits as necessary (with a default of six digits after the decimal point). If you supply an argument of zero with and explicit precision of zero, printf will not print any characters. Specifying a precision for a string conversion (%s) indicates the maximum number of characters to write. An optional type modier character from the table below. This character species the data type of the argument if it is dierent from the default. In the example given above, %-17.7ld, the type modier character is l; normally, the d output conversion character expects a data type of int, but the l species that a long int is being used instead. The numeric conversions usually expect an argument of either type int, unsigned int, or double. (The %c conversion converts its argument to unsigned char.) For the integer conversions (%d and %i), char and short arguments are automatically converted to type int, and for the unsigned integer conversions (%u, %x, and %X),

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they are converted to type unsigned int. For the oating-point conversions (%e, %E, and %f), all float arguments are converted to type double. You can use one of the type modiers from the table below to specify another type of argument.

Species that the argument is a long int (for %d and %i), or an unsigned long int (for %u, %x, and %X).

Species that the argument is a long double for the oating-point conversions (%e, %E, and %f). Same as ll, for integer conversions (%d and %i).

ll

Species that the argument is a long long int (for %d and %i). On systems that do not have extra-long integers, this has the same eect as l.

Same as ll; comes from calling extra-long integers quad ints.

Same as Z, but GNU only, and deprecated.

Species that the argument is of type size_t. (The size_t type is used to specify the sizes of blocks of memory, and many functions in this chapter use it.)

Make sure that your conversion speciers use valid syntax; if they do not, if you do not supply enough arguments for all conversion speciers, or if any arguments are of the wrong type, unpredictable results may follow. Supplying too many arguments is not a problem, however; the extra arguments are simply ignored.

Here is a code example that shows various uses of printf.

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#include <stdio.h> #include <errno.h> int main() { int my_integer = -42; unsigned int my_ui = 23; float my_float = 3.56; double my_double = 424242.171717; char my_char = w; char my_string[] = "Pardon me, may I borrow your nose?"; printf ("Integer: %d\n", my_integer); printf ("Unsigned integer: %u\n", my_ui); printf ("The same, as hexadecimal: %#x %#x\n", my_integer, my_ui); printf ("Floating-point: %f\n", my_float); printf ("Double, exponential notation: %17.11e\n", my_double); printf ("Single character: %c\n", my_char); printf ("String: %s\n", my_string); errno = EACCES; printf ("errno string (EACCES): %m\n"); return 0; } The code example above produces the following output on a GNU system: Integer: -42 Unsigned integer: 23 The same, as hexadecimal: 0xffffffd6 0x17 Floating-point: 3.560000 Double, exponential notation: 4.24242171717e+05 Single character: w String: Pardon me, may I borrow your nose? errno string (EACCES): Permission denied

16.2.3 fprintf

The fprintf (le print formatted) command is identical to printf, except that its rst parameter is a stream to which to send output. The following code example is the same as the one for printf, except that it sends its output to the text le snazzyjazz.txt.

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#include <stdio.h> #include <errno.h> int main() { int my_integer = -42; unsigned int my_ui = 23; float my_float = 3.56; double my_double = 424242.171717; char my_char = w; char my_string[] = "Pardon me, may I borrow your nose?"; FILE *my_stream; char my_filename[] = "snazzyjazz.txt"; my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "w"); fprintf (my_stream, "Integer: %d\n", my_integer); fprintf (my_stream, "Unsigned integer: %u\n", my_ui); fprintf (my_stream, "The same, as hexadecimal: %#x %#x\n", my_integer, my_ui); fprintf (my_stream, "Floating-point: %f\n", my_float); fprintf (my_stream, "Double, exponential notation: %17.11e\n", my_double); fprintf (my_stream, "Single character: %c\n", my_char); fprintf (my_stream, "String: %s\n", my_string); errno = EACCES; fprintf (my_stream, "errno string (EACCES): %m\n"); /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); return 0; }

16.2.4 asprintf
The asprintf (mnemonic: allocating string print formatted) command is identical to printf, except that its rst parameter is a string to which to send output. It terminates the string with a null character. It returns the number of characters stored in the string, not including the terminating null. The asprintf function is nearly identical to the simpler sprintf, but is much safer, because it dynamically allocates the string to which it sends output, so that the string will never overow. The rst parameter is a pointer to a string variable, that is, it is of type char **. The return value is the number of characters allocated to the buer, or a negative value if an error occurred. The following code example prints the string Being 4 is cool, but being free is best of all. to the string variable my_string, then prints the string on the screen. No-

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tice that my_string is not initially allocated any space at all; asprintf allocates the space itself. (See Section 16.2.1.1 [puts], page 123, for more information on the puts function.) #include <stdio.h> int main() { char *my_string; asprintf (&my_string, "Being %d is cool, but being free is best of all.", 4); puts (my_string); return 0; }

16.2.5 Deprecated formatted string output functions

This section discusses unsafe functions for formatted string output. It actually contains only one function, sprintf. You should never use the sprintf function; use asprintf instead.

16.2.5.1 sprintf

The sprintf (string print formatted) command is similar to asprintf, except that it is much less safe. Its rst parameter is a string to which to send output. It terminates the string with a null character. It returns the number of characters stored in the string, not including the terminating null. This function will behave unpredictably if the string to which it is printing overlaps any of its arguments. It is dangerous because the characters output to the string may overow it. This problem cannot be solved with the eld width modier to the conversion specier, because only the minimum eld width can be specied with it. To avoid this problem, it is better to use asprintf, but there is a lot of C code that still uses sprintf, so it is important to know about it. (See Section 16.2.4 [asprintf], page 130.) The following code example prints the string Being 4 is cool, but being free is best of all. to the string variable my_string then prints the string on the screen. Notice that my_string has been allocated 100 bytes of space, enough to contain the characters output to it. (See Section 16.2.1.1 [puts], page 123, for more information on the puts function.)

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#include <stdio.h> int main() { char my_string[100]; sprintf (my_string, "Being %d is cool, but being free is best of all.", 4); puts (my_string); return 0; }

16.2.6 String input

The functions in this section are for input of strings from streams. They are generally very safe to use.

16.2.6.1 getline
The getline function is the preferred method for reading lines of text from a stream, including standard input. The other standard functions, including gets, fgets, and scanf, are too unreliable. (Doubtless, in some programs you will see code that uses these unreliable functions, and at times you will come across compilers that cannot handle the safer getline function. As a professional, you should avoid unreliable functions and any compiler that requires you to be unsafe.) The getline function reads an entire line from a stream, up to and including the next newline character. It takes three parameters. The rst is a pointer to a block allocated with malloc or calloc. (These two functions allocate computer memory for the program when it is run. See Section 20.2 [Memory allocation], page 212, for more information.) This parameter is of type char **; it will contain the line read by getline when it returns. The second parameter is a pointer to a variable of type size_t; this parameter species the size in bytes of the block of memory pointed to by the rst parameter. The third parameter is simply the stream from which to read the line. The pointer to the block of memory allocated for getline is merely a suggestion. The getline function will automatically enlarge the block of memory as needed, via the realloc function, so there is never a shortage of space one reason why getline is so safe. Not only that, but getline will also tell you the new size of the block by the value returned in the second parameter. If an error occurs, such as end of le being reached without reading any bytes, getline returns -1. Otherwise, the rst parameter will contain a pointer to the string containing the line that was read, and getline returns the number of characters read (up to and including the newline, but not the nal null character). The return value is of type ssize_t. Although the second parameter is of type pointer to string (char **), you cannot treat it as an ordinary string, since it may contain null characters before the nal null character

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marking the end of the line. The return value enables you to distinguish null characters that getline read as part of the line, by specifying the size of the line. Any characters in the block up to the number of bytes specied by the return value are part of the line; any characters after that number of bytes are not. Here is a short code example that demonstrates how to use getline to read a line of text from the keyboard safely. Try typing more than 100 characters. Notice that getline can safely handle your line of input, no matter how long it is. Also note that the puts command used to display the line of text read will be inadequate if the line contains any null characters, since it will stop displaying text at the rst null, but that since it is dicult to enter null characters from the keyboard, this is generally not a consideration. #include <stdio.h> int main() { int bytes_read; int nbytes = 100; char *my_string; puts ("Please enter a line of text."); /* These 2 lines are the heart of the program. */ my_string = (char *) malloc (nbytes + 1); bytes_read = getline (&my_string, &nbytes, stdin); if (bytes_read == -1) { puts ("ERROR!"); } else { puts ("You typed:"); puts (my_string); } return 0; }

16.2.6.2 getdelim
The getdelim function is a more general form of the getline function; whereas getline stops reading input at the rst newline character it encounters, the getdelim function enables you to specify other delimiter characters than newline. In fact, getline simply calls getdelim and species that the delimiter character is a newline. The syntax for getdelim is nearly the same as that of getline, except that the third parameter species the delimiter character, and the fourth parameter is the stream from which to read. You can exactly duplicate the getline example in the last section with getdelim, by replacing the line bytes_read = getline (&my_string, &nbytes, stdin);

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with the line bytes_read = getdelim (&my_string, &nbytes, \n, stdin);

16.2.7 Deprecated string input functions

The functions in this section are for input of strings from streams, but they are generally dangerous and should only be called when there is no alternative. They are included here because you may come across code imported from a non-GNU system that uses these unsafe functions.

16.2.7.1 gets
If you want to read a string from standard input, you can use the gets function, the name of which stands for get string. However, this function is deprecated that means it is obsolete and it is strongly suggested you do not use it because it is dangerous. It is dangerous because it provides no protection against overowing the string into which it is saving data. Programs that use gets can actually be a security problem on your computer. Since it is sometimes used in older code (which is why the GNU C Library still provides it), we will examine it briey; nevertheless, you should always use the function getline instead. (See Section 16.2.6.1 [getline], page 132.) The gets function takes one parameter, the string in which to store the data read. It reads characters from standard input up to the next newline character (that is, when the user presses RETURN ), discards the newline character, and copies the rest into the string passed to it. If there was no error, it returns the same string (as a return value, which may be discarded); otherwise, if there was an error, it returns a null pointer. Here is a short code example that uses gets: #include <stdio.h> int main() { char my_string[500]; printf("Type something.\n"); gets(my_string); printf ("You typed: %s\n", my_string); return 0; } If you attempt to compile the example above, it will compile and will run properly, but GCC will warn you against the use of a deprecated function, as follows: /tmp/ccPW3krf.o: In function main: /tmp/ccPW3krf.o(.text+0x24): the gets function is dangerous and should not be used. Remember! Never use this function in your own code. Always use getline instead.

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16.2.7.2 fgets

The fgets (le get string) function is similar to the gets function. This function is deprecated that means it is obsolete and it is strongly suggested you do not use it because it is dangerous. It is dangerous because if the input data contains a null character, you cant tell. Dont use fgets unless you know the data cannot contain a null. Dont use it to read les edited by the user because, if the user inserts a null character, you should either handle it properly or print a clear error message. Always use getline or getdelim instead of fgets if you can. Rather than reading a string from standard input, as gets does, fgets reads it from a specied stream, up to and including a newline character. It stores the string in the string variable passed to it, adding a null character to terminate the string. This function takes three parameters: the rst is the string into which to read data, the second is the maximum number of characters to read. (You must supply at least this many characters of space in the string, or your program will probably crash, but at least the fgets function protects against overowing the string and creating a security hazard, unlike gets.) The third parameter is the stream from which to read. The number of characters that fgets reads is actually one less than than number specied; it stores the null character in the extra character space. If there is no error, fgets returns the string read as a return value, which may be discarded. Otherwise, for example if the stream is already at end of le, it returns a null pointer. Unfortunately, like the gets function, fgets is deprecated, in this case because when fgets cannot tell whether a null character is included in the string it reads. If a null character is read by fgets, it will be stored in the string along with the rest of the characters read. Since a null character terminates a string in C, C will then consider your string to end prematurely, right before the rst null character. Only use fgets if you are certain the data read cannot contain a null; otherwise, use getline. Here is a code example that uses fgets. It will create a text le containing the string Hidee ho! plus a newline, read it back with fgets, and print it on standard output. Notice that although 100 characters are allocated for the string my_string, and requested to be read in the fgets call, there are not that many characters in the le. The fgets function only reads the string up to the newline character; the important thing is to allocate enough space in the string variable to contain the string to be read. #include <stdio.h> int main() { int input_character; FILE *my_stream; char my_filename[] = "snazzyjazz.txt"; char my_string[100];

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my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "w"); fprintf (my_stream, "Hidee ho!\n"); /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "r"); fgets (my_string, 100, my_stream); /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); printf ("%s", my_string); return 0; }

16.2.8 Formatted string input

The formatted string input functions are the opposite of the formatted string output functions. Unlike printf and similar functions, which generate formatted output, scanf and its friends parse formatted input. Like the opposite functions, each accepts, as a parameter, a template string that contains conversion speciers. In the case of scanf and related functions, however, the conversion speciers are meant to match patterns in an input string, such as integers, oating point numbers, and character sequences, and store the values read in variables.

16.2.8.1 sscanf
The sscanf function accepts a string from which to read input, then, in a manner similar to printf and related functions, it accepts a template string and a series of related arguments. It tries to match the template string to the string from which it is reading input, using conversion specier like those of printf. The sscanf function is just like the deprecated parent scanf function, except that the rst argument of sscanf species a string from which to read, whereas scanf can only read from standard input. Reaching the end of the string is treated as an end-of-le condition. Here is an example of sscanf in action: sscanf (input_string, "%as %as %as", &str_arg1, &str_arg2, &str_arg3); If the string sscanf is scanning overlaps with any of the arguments, unexpected results will follow, as in the following example. Dont do this! sscanf (input_string, "%as", &input_string); Here is a good code example that parses input from the user with sscanf. It prompts the user to enter three integers separated by whitespace, then reads an arbitrarily long line of text from the user with getline. It then checks whether exactly three arguments were assigned by sscanf. If the line read does not contain the data requested (for example, if it

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contains a oating-point number or any alphabetic characters), the program prints an error message and prompts the user for three integers again. When the program nally receives exactly the data it was looking for from the user, it prints out a message acknowledging the input, and then prints the three integers. It is this exibility of input and great ease of recovery from errors that makes the getline/sscanf combination so vastly superior to scanf alone. Simply put, you should never use scanf where you can use this combination instead. #include <stdio.h> int main() { int nbytes = 100; char *my_string; int int1, int2, int3; int args_assigned; args_assigned = 0; while (args_assigned != 3) { puts ("Please enter three integers separated by whitespace."); my_string = (char *) malloc (nbytes + 1); getline (&my_string, &nbytes, stdin); args_assigned = sscanf (my_string, "%d %d %d", &int1, &int2, &int3); if (args_assigned != 3) puts ("\nInput invalid!"); } printf ("\nThanks!\n%d\n%d\n%d\n", int1, int2, int3); return 0; } Template strings for sscanf and related functions are somewhat more free-form than those for printf. For example, most conversion speciers ignore any preceding whitespace. Further, you cannot specify a precision for sscanf conversion speciers, as you can for those of printf. Another important dierence between sscanf and printf is that the arguments to sscanf must be pointers; this allows sscanf to return values in the variables they point to. If you forget to pass pointers to sscanf, you may receive some strange errors, and it is easy to forget to do so; therefore, this is one of the rst things you should check if code containing a call to sscanf begins to go awry. A sscanf template string can contain any number of any number of whitespace characters, any number of ordinary, non-whitespace characters, and any number of conversion speciers starting with %. A whitespace character in the template string matches zero or more whitespace characters in the input string. Ordinary, non-whitespace characters must correspond exactly in the template string and the input stream; otherwise, a matching error occurs. Thus, the template string " foo " matches "foo" and " foo ", but not " food ".

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If you create an input conversion specier with invalid syntax, or if you dont supply enough arguments for all the conversion speciers in the template string, your code may do unexpected things, so be careful. Extra arguments, however, are simply ignored. Conversion speciers start with a percent sign (%) and terminate with a character from the following table:

16.2.8.2 Formatted input conversion speciers

Matches a xed number of characters. If you specify a maximum eld width (see below), that is how many characters will be matched; otherwise, %c matches one character. This conversion does not append a null character to the end of the text it reads, as does the %s conversion. It also does not skip whitespace characters, but reads precisely the number of characters it was told to, or generates a matching error if it cannot. Matches an optionally signed decimal integer, containing the following sequence: 1. An optional plus or minus sign (+ or -). 2. One or more decimal digits. Note that %d and %i are not synonymous for scanf, as they are for printf.

Matches an optionally signed oating-point number, containing the following sequence: 1. An optional plus or minus sign (+ or -). 2. A oating-point number in decimal or hexadecimal format. The decimal format is a sequence of one or more decimal digits, optionally containing a decimal point character (usually .), followed by an optional exponent part, consisting of a character e or E, an optional plus or minus sign, and a sequence of decimal digits. The hexadecimal format is a 0x or 0X, followed by a sequence of one or more hexadecimal digits, optionally containing a decimal point character, followed by an optional binary-exponent part, consisting of a character p or P, an optional plus or minus sign, and a sequence of digits.

E f g G i

Same as e. Same as e. Same as e. Same as e. Matches an optionally signed integer, containing the following sequence: 1. An optional plus or minus sign (+ or -). 2. A string of characters representing an unsigned integer.

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If the string begins with 0x or 0X, the number is assumed to be in hexadecimal format, and the rest of the string must contain hexadecimal digits. Otherwise, if the string begins with 0, the number is assumed to be in octal format (base eight), and the rest of the string must contain octal digits. Otherwise, the number is assumed to be in decimal format, and the rest of the string must contain decimal digits. Note that %d and %i are not synonymous for scanf, as they are for printf. You can print integers in this syntax with printf by using the # ag character with the %x or %d output conversions. (See Section 16.2.2.1 [printf], page 125.) s Matches a string of non-whitespace characters. It skips initial whitespace, but stops when it meets more whitespace after it has read something. It stores a null character at the end of the text that it reads, to mark the end of the string. (See Section 16.2.9.2 [String overows with scanf], page 141, for a warning about using this conversion.) Matches an unsigned integer in hexadecimal format. The string matched must begin with 0x or 0X, and the rest of the string must contain hexadecimal digits. Same as x. Matches a string containing an arbitrary set of characters. For example, %12[0123456789] means to read a string with a maximum eld width of 12, containing characters from the set 0123456789 in other words, twelve decimal digits. An embedded - character means a range of characters; thus %12[0-9] means the same thing as the last example. Preceding the characters in the square brackets with a caret (^) means to read a string not containing the characters listed. Thus, %12[^0-9] means to read a twelve-character string not containing any decimal digit. (See Section 16.2.9.2 [String overows with scanf], page 141, for a warning about using this conversion.) Matches a percent sign. Does not correspond to an argument, and does not permit ags, eld width, or type modier to be specied (see below).

X [

In between the percent sign (%) and the input conversion character, you can place some combination of the following modiers, in sequence. (Note that the percent sign conversion (%%) doesnt use arguments or modiers.) An optional * ag. This ag species that a match should be made between the conversion specier and an item in the input stream, but that the value should not then be assigned to an argument. An optional a ag, valid with string conversions only. This is a GNU extension to scanf that requests allocation of a buer long enough to safely store the string that was read. (See Section 16.2.9.2 [String overows with scanf], page 141, for information on how to use this ag.)

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An optional ag. This ag species that the number read will be grouped according to the rules currently specied on your system. For example, in the United States, this usually means that 1,000 will be read as one thousand. An optional decimal integer that species the maximum eld width. The scanf function will stop reading characters from the input stream either when this maximum is reached, or when a non-matching character is read, whichever comes rst. Discarded initial whitespace does not count toward this width; neither does the null character stored by string input conversions to mark the end of the string. An optional type modier character from the following table. (The default type of the corresponding argument is int * for the %d and %i conversions, unsigned int * for %x and %X, and float * for %e and its synonyms. You can use these type modiers to specify otherwise.) h Species that the argument to which the value read should be assigned is of type short int * or unsigned short int *. Valid for the %d and %i conversions. For the %d and %i conversions, species that the argument to which the value read should be assigned is of type long int * or unsigned long int *. For the %e conversion and its synonyms, species that the argument is of type double *. For the %d and %i conversions, species that the argument to which the value read should be assigned is of type long long int * or unsigned long long int *. On systems that do not have extra-long integers, this has the same eect as l. For the %e conversion and its synonyms, species that the argument is of type long double *. ll q z Same as L, for the %d and %i conversions. Same as L, for the %d and %i conversions. Species that the argument to which the value read should be assigned is of type size_t. (The size_t type is used to specify the sizes of blocks of memory, and many functions in this chapter use it.) Valid for the %d and %i conversions.

16.2.9 Deprecated formatted string input functions

These formatted string input functions are generally dangerous and should only be used when there is no alternative. However, because you may encounter them when importing older code or code from non-GNU systems, and because the scanf function is in a sense the parent of the safe sscanf function, it is important that you know about them.

16.2.9.1 scanf

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The rst of the functions we will examine is scanf (scan formatted). The scanf function is considered dangerous for a number of reasons. First, if used improperly, it can cause your program to crash by reading character strings that overow the string variables meant to contain them, just like gets. (See Section 16.2.7.1 [gets], page 134.) Second, scanf can hang if it encounters unexpected non-numeric input while reading a line from standard input. Finally, it is dicult to recover from errors when the scanf template string does not match the input exactly. If you are going to read input from the keyboard, it is far better to read it with getline and parse the resulting string with sscanf (string scan formatted) than to use scanf directly. However, since sscanf uses nearly the same syntax as sscanf, as does the related fscanf, and since scanf is a standard C function, it is important to learn about it. If scanf cannot match the template string to the input string, it will return immediately and it will leave the rst non-matching character as the next character to read from the stream. This is called a matching error, and is the main reason scanf tends to hang when reading input from the keyboard; a second call to scanf will almost certainly choke, since the le position indicator of the stream is not pointing where scanf will expect it to. Normally, scanf returns the number of assignments made to the arguments it was passed, so check the return value to see if scanf found all the items you expected.

16.2.9.2 String overows with scanf

If you use the %s and %[ conversions improperly, then the number of characters read is limited only by where the next whitespace character appears. This almost cetainly means that invalid input could make your program crash, because input too long would overow whatever buer you have provided for it. No matter how long your buer is, a user could always supply input that is longer. A well-written program reports invalid input with a comprehensible error message, not with a crash. Fortunately, it is possible to avoid scanf buer overow by either specifying a eld width or using the a ag. When you specify a eld width, you need to provide a buer (using malloc or a similar function) of type char *. (See Section 20.2 [Memory allocation], page 212, for more information on malloc.) You need to make sure that the eld width you specify does not exceed the number of bytes allocated to your buer. On the other hand, you do not need to allocate a buer if you specify the a ag character scanf will do it for you. Simply pass scanf an pointer to an unallocated variable of type char *, and scanf will allocate however large a buer the string requires, and return the result in your argument. This is a GNU-only extension to scanf functionality. Here is a code example that shows rst how to safely read a string of xed maximum length by allocating a buer and specifying a eld width, then how to safely read a string of any length by using the a ag.

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#include <stdio.h> int main() { int bytes_read; int nbytes = 100; char *string1, *string2; string1 = (char *) malloc (25); puts ("Please enter a string of 20 characters or fewer."); scanf ("%20s", string1); printf ("\nYou typed the following string:\n%s\n\n", string1); puts ("Now enter a string of any length."); scanf ("%as", &string2); printf ("\nYou typed the following string:\n%s\n", string2); return 0; } There are a couple of things to notice about this example program. First, notice that the second argument passed to the rst scanf call is string1, not &string1. The scanf function requires pointers as the arguments corresponding to its conversions, but a string variable is already a pointer (of type char *), so you do not need the extra layer of indirection here. However, you do need it for the second call to scanf. We passed it an argument of &string2 rather than string2, because we are using the a ag, which allocates a string variable big enough to contain the characters it read, then returns a pointer to it. The second thing to notice is what happens if you type a string of more than 20 characters at the rst prompt. The rst scanf call will only read the rst 20 characters, then the second scanf call will gobble up all the remaining characters without even waiting for a response to the second prompt. This is because scanf does not read a line at a time, the way the getline function does. Instead, it immediately matches attempts to match its template string to whatever characters are in the stdin stream. The second scanf call matches all remaining characters from the overly-long string, stopping at the rst whitespace character. Thus, if you type 12345678901234567890xxxxx in response to the rst prompt, the program will immediately print the following text without pausing: You typed the following string: 12345678901234567890 Now enter a string of any length. You typed the following string: xxxxx (See Section 16.2.8.1 [sscanf], page 136, for a better example of how to parse input from the user.)

16.2.10 fscanf

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The fscanf function is just like the scanf function, except that the rst argument of fscanf species a stream from which to read, whereas scanf can only read from standard input. Here is a code example that generates a text le containing ve numbers with fprintf, then reads them back in with fscanf. Note the use of the # ags in the %#d conversions in the fprintf call; this is a good way to generate data in a format that scanf and related functions can easily read with the %i input conversion. #include <stdio.h> #include <errno.h> int main() { float f1, f2; int i1, i2; FILE *my_stream; char my_filename[] = "snazzyjazz.txt"; my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "w"); fprintf (my_stream, "%f %f %#d %#d", 23.5, -12e6, 100, 5); /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "r"); fscanf (my_stream, "%f %f %i %i", &f1, &f2, &i1, &i2); /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); printf printf printf printf ("Float 1 ("Float 2 ("Integer ("Integer = = 1 2 %f\n", f1); %f\n", f2); = %d\n", i1); = %d\n", i2);

return 0; } This code example prints the following output on the screen: Float 1 Float 2 Integer Integer = = 1 2 23.500000 -12000000.000000 = 100 = 5

If you examine the text le snazzyjazz.txt, you will see it contains the following text: 23.500000 -12000000.000000 100 5

16.3 Single-character input and output

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This section covers the use of several functions for the input and output of single characters from standard input and output or les.

16.3.1 getchar

If you want to read a single character from standard input, you can use the getchar function. This function takes no parameters, but reads the next character from stdin as an unsigned char, and returns its value, converted to an integer. Here is a short program that uses getchar: #include <stdio.h> int main() { int input_character; printf("Hit any key, then hit RETURN.\n"); input_character = getchar(); printf ("The key you hit was %c.\n", input_character); printf ("Bye!\n"); return 0; } Note that because stdin is line-buered, getchar will not return a value until you hit the RETURN key. However, getchar still only reads one character from stdin, so if you type hellohellohello at the prompt, the program above will still only get once character. It will print the following line, and then terminate: The key you hit was h. Bye!

16.3.2 putchar

If you want to print a single character on standard output, you can use the putchar function. It takes a single integer parameter containing a character (the argument can be a single-quoted text character, as in the example below), and sends the character to stdout. If a write error occurs, putchar returns EOF; otherwise, it returns the integer it was passed. This can simply be disregarded, as in the example below. Here is a short code example that makes use of putchar. It prints an X, a space, and then a line of ten exclamation marks (!!!!!!!!!!) on the screen, then outputs a newline so that the next shell prompt will not occur on the same line. Notice the use of the for loop; by this means, putchar can be used not just for one character, but multiple times.

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#include <stdio.h> int main() { int i; putchar (X); putchar ( ); for (i=1; i<=10; i++) { putchar (!); } putchar (\n); return 0; }

16.3.3 getc and fgetc

If you want to read a single character from a stream other than stdin, you can use the getc function. This function is very similar to getchar, but accepts an argument that species the stream from which to read. It reads the next character from the specied stream as an unsigned char, and returns its value, converted to an integer. If a read error occurs or the end of the le is reached, getc returns EOF instead. Here is a code example that makes use of getc. This code example creates a text le called snazzyjazz.txt with fopen, writes the alphabet in upper-case letters plus a newline to it with fprintf, reads the le position with ftell, and gets the character there with getc. It then seeks position 25 with fseek and repeats the process, attempts to read past the end of the le and reports end-of-le status with feof, and generates an error by attempting to write to a read-only stream. It then reports the error status with ferror, returns to the start of the le with rewind and prints the rst character, and nally attempts to close the le and prints a status message indicating whether it could do so. See Section 16.1.4 [File position], page 120, for information on ftell, fseek, and rewind. See Section 16.1.6 [End-of-le and error functions], page 122, for more information on feof and ferror. #include <stdio.h> int main() { int input_char; FILE *my_stream; char my_filename[] = "snazzyjazz.txt"; long position; int eof_status, error_status, close_error;

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my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "w"); fprintf (my_stream, "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"); /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); printf ("Opening file...\n"); my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "r"); position = ftell (my_stream); input_char = getc (my_stream); printf ("Character at position %d = %c.\n\n", position, input_char); printf ("Seeking position 25...\n"); fseek (my_stream, 25, SEEK_SET); position = ftell (my_stream); input_char = getc (my_stream); printf ("Character at position %d = %c.\n\n", position, input_char); printf ("Attempting to read again...\n"); input_char = getc (my_stream); eof_status = feof (my_stream); printf ("feof returns %d.\n\n", eof_status); error_status = ferror (my_stream); printf ("ferror returns %d.\n", error_status); printf ("Attempting to write to this read-only stream...\n"); putc (!, my_stream); error_status = ferror (my_stream); printf ("ferror returns %d.\n\n", error_status); printf ("Rewinding...\n"); rewind (my_stream); position = ftell (my_stream); input_char = getc (my_stream); printf ("Character at position %d = %c.\n", position, input_char); close_error = fclose (my_stream); /* Handle fclose errors */ if (close_error != 0) { printf ("File could not be closed.\n"); } else { printf ("File closed.\n"); } return 0; } There is another function in the GNU C Library called fgetc. It is identical to getc in most respects, except that getc is usually implemented as a macro function and is highly optimised, so is preferable in most situations. (In situations where you are reading from

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standard input, getc is about as fast as fgetc, since humans type slowly compared to how fast computers can read their input, but when you are reading from a stream that is not interactively produced by a human, fgetc is probably better.)

16.3.4 putc and fputc

If you want to write a single character to a stream other than stdout, you can use the putc function. This function is very similar to putchar, but accepts an argument that species the stream to which to write. It takes a single integer parameter containing a character (the argument can be a single-quoted text character, as in the example below), and sends the character to the specied stream. If a write error occurs, putc returns EOF; otherwise, it returns the integer it was passed. This can simply be disregarded, as in the example below. The following code example creates a text le called snazzyjazz.txt. It then writes an X, a space, and then a line of ten exclamation marks (!!!!!!!!!!) to the le, and a newline character to it using the putc function. Notice the use of the for loop; by this means, putchar can be used not just for one character, but multiple times. , then writes ten exclamation mark characters (!!!!!!!!!!) #include <stdio.h> int main() { int i; FILE *my_stream; char my_filename[] = "snazzyjazz.txt"; my_stream = fopen (my_filename, "w"); putc (X, my_stream); putc ( , my_stream); for (i=1; i<=10; i++) { putc (!, my_stream); } putc (\n, my_stream); /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); return 0; } There is another function in the GNU C Library called fputc. It is identical to putc in most respects, except that putc is usually implemented as a macro function and is highly optimised, so is preferable in most situations.

16.3.5 ungetc()

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Every time a character is read from a stream by a function like getc, the le position indicator advances by 1. It is possible to reverse the motion of the le position indicator with the function ungetc, which steps the le position indicator back by one byte within the le and reverses the eect of the last character read operation. (This is called unreading the character or pushing it back onto the stream.) The intended purpose is to leave the indicator in the correct le position when other functions have moved too far ahead in the stream. Programs can therefore peek ahead, or get a glimpse of the input they will read next, then reset the le position with ungetc. On GNU systems, you cannot call ungetc twice in a row without reading at least one character in between; in other words, GNU only supports one character of pushback. Pushing back characters does not change the le being accessed at all; ungetc only aects the stream buer, not the le. If fseek, rewind, or some other le positioning function is called, any character due to be pushed back by ungetc is discarded. Unreading a character on a stream that is at end-of-le resets the end-of-le indicator for the stream, because there is once again a character available to be read. However, if the character pushed back onto the stream is EOF, ungetc does nothing and just returns EOF. Here is a code example that reads all the whitespace at the beginning of a le with getc, then backs up one byte to the rst non-whitespace character, and reads all following characters up to a newline character with the getline function. (See Section 16.2.6.1 [getline], page 132, for more information on that function.) #include <stdio.h> int main() { int in_char; FILE *my_stream; char *my_string = NULL; size_t nchars = 0; my_stream = fopen ("snazzyjazz.txt", "w"); fprintf (my_stream, " Heres some non-whitespace.\n"); /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); my_stream = fopen ("snazzyjazz.txt", "r"); /* Skip all whitespace in stream */ do in_char = getc (my_stream); while (isspace (in_char));

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/* Back up to first non-whitespace character */ ungetc (in_char, my_stream); getline (&my_string, &nchars, my_stream); /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (my_stream); printf ("String read:\n"); printf ("%s", my_string); return 0; } The code example will skip all initial whitespace in the le snazzyjazz.txt, and display the following text on standard output: String read: Heres some non-whitespace.

16.4 Programming with pipes

There may be times when you will wish to manipulate other programs on a GNU system from within your C program. One good way to do so is the facility called a pipe. Using pipes, you can read from or write to any program on a GNU system that writes to standard output and reads from standard input. (In the ancestors of modern GNU systems, pipes were frequently les on disk; now they are usually streams or something similar. They are called pipes because people usually visualise data going in at one end and coming out at the other.) For example, you might wish to send output from your program to a printer. As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, each printer on your system is assigned a device name such as /dev/lp0. Pipes provide a better way to send output to the printer than writing directly to the device, however. Pipes are useful for many things, not just sending output to the printer. Suppose you wish to list all programs and processes running on your computer that contain the string init in their names. To do so at the GNU/Linux command line, you would type something like the following command: ps -A | grep init This command line takes the output of the ps -A command, which lists all running processes, and pipes it with the pipe symbol (|) to the grep init command, which returns all lines that were passed to it that contain the string init. The output of this whole process will probably look something like this on your system: 1 ? 00:00:11 init 4884 tty6 00:00:00 xinit The pipe symbol | is very handy for command-line pipes and pipes within shell scripts, but it is also possible to set up and use pipes within C programs. The two main C functions to remember in this regard are popen and pclose.

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The popen function accepts as its rst argument a string containing a shell command, such as lpr. Its second argument is a string containing either the mode argument r or w. If you specify r, the pipe will be open for reading; if you specify w, it will be open for writing. The return value is a stream open for reading or writing, as the case may be; if there is an error, popen returns a null pointer. The pclose function closes a pipe opened by popen. It accepts a single argument, the stream to close. It waits for the stream to close, and returns the status code returned by the program that was called by popen. If you open the pipe for reading or writing, in between the popen and pclose calls, it is possible to read from or write to the pipe in the same way that you might read from or write to any other stream, with high-level input/output calls such as getdelim, fprintf and so on. The following program example shows how to pipe the output of the ps -A command to the grep init command, exactly as in the GNU/Linux command line example above. The output of this program should be almost exactly the same as sample output shown above. #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> int main () { FILE *ps_pipe; FILE *grep_pipe; int bytes_read; int nbytes = 100; char *my_string; /* Open our two pipes */ ps_pipe = popen ("ps -A", "r"); grep_pipe = popen ("grep init", "w"); /* Check that pipes are non-null, therefore open */ if ((!ps_pipe) || (!grep_pipe)) { fprintf (stderr, "One or both pipes failed.\n"); return EXIT_FAILURE; } /* Read from ps_pipe until two newlines */ my_string = (char *) malloc (nbytes + 1); bytes_read = getdelim (&my_string, &nbytes, "\n\n", ps_pipe); /* Close ps_pipe, checking for errors */ if (pclose (ps_pipe) != 0) { fprintf (stderr, "Could not run ps, or other error.\n"); }

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/* Send output of ps -A to grep init, with two newlines */ fprintf (grep_pipe, "%s\n\n", my_string); /* Close grep_pipe, cehcking for errors */ if (pclose (grep_pipe) != 0) { fprintf (stderr, "Could not run grep, or other error.\n"); } /* Exit! */ return 0; }

16.5 Low-level le routines

High-level le routines such as those already described are usually convenient and easy to use. However, low-level le routines such as the ones in this section have some advantages. For example, they do not treat all le input/output as text streams, as the high-level routines do; for that reason, working with binary les may be easier using low-level routines. For another thing, low-level routines do not buer their input and output, so you will never need to remember to ush your streams with fflush or similar functions, as you sometimes must with high-level routines. Unfortunately, because low-level routines work at a lower level of abstraction, they can be tricky, even dangerous to use that is to say, if used incorrectly, they may corrupt your data or cause your program to terminate unexpectedly; never fear, they will not explode your monitor or cause your computer to become sapient and attempt world domination. As mentioned, low-level le routines do not use text streams; instead, the connection they open to your le is an integer called a le descriptor. You pass the le descriptor that designates your le to most low-level le routines, just as you pass the stream that designates your le to most high-level le routines. For example, while the low-level open function takes a lename string to open a le, the matched close function takes the le descriptor returned by open: my_file_descriptor = open ("foo_file", O_RDONLY); close_err = close (my_file_descriptor);

16.5.1 Usual le name errors

Most low-level le functions return some kind of error ag if they cannot perform the action you request, for example, if they cannot parse the le name or nd the le. However, to discover which error or what kind of error has occurred, you must frequently refer to the system variable errno. This is an integer specifying the most recent error that has occurred. Macros for values of errno are listed below. They are all dened in the GNU C Library. The word component below refers to part of a full le name. For example, in the le name /home/fred/snozzberry.txt, fred is a component that designates a subdirectory of the directory /home, and snozzberry.txt is the name of the le proper.

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Most functions that accept le name arguments can detect the following error conditions. These are known as the usual le name errors. The names of the errors, such as EACCES, are compounded of E for error and a term indicating the type of error, such as ACCES for access. EACCES The program is not permitted to search within one of the directories in the le name.

ENAMETOOLONG Either the full le name is too long, or some component is too long. GNU does not limit the overall length of le names, but depending on which le system you are using, the length of component names may be limited. (For example, you may be running GNU/Linux but accessing a Macintosh HFS disk; the names of Macintosh les cannot be longer than 31 characters.) ENOENT ENOTDIR ELOOP Either some component of the le name does not exist, or some component is a symbolic link whose target le does not exist. One of the le name components that is supposed to be a directory is not a directory. Too many symbolic links had to be followed to nd the le. (GNU has a limit on how many symbolic links can be followed at once, as a basic way to detect recursive (looping) links.)

You can display English text for each of these errors with the m conversion specier of the printf function, as in the following short example. errno = EACCES; printf ("errno string (EACCES): %m\n"); This example prints the following string: errno string (EACCES): Permission denied See Section 16.2.2.2 [Formatted output conversion speciers], page 126, for more information on the m conversion specier.

16.5.2 Opening les at a low level

You can open a le, or create one if it does not already exist, with the open command, which creates and returns a new le descriptor for the le name passed to it. If the le is successfully opened, the le position indicator is initially set to zero (the beginning of the le). (Note that the open function is actually called at an underlying level by fopen.) The rst parameter of open is a string containing the lename of the le you wish to open. The second parameter is an integer argument created by the bitwise OR of the following le status ags. (Bitwise OR is a mathematical operator that we have not yet covered in this book. To perform bitwise OR on two variables a and b, you simply insert a pipe character between them, thus: a | b. Bitwise OR is similar to the way the expression and/or is used in English. See the code example below for the use of bitwise OR with le status ags. See Chapter 18 [Advanced operators], page 185, for a detailed explanation of bitwise OR and other bitwise operators.)

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The following ags are the more important ones for a beginning C programmer to know. There are a number of le status ags which are relevant only to more advanced programmers; for more details, see section File Status Flags in The GNU C Library Reference Manual.) Note that these ags are dened in macros in the GNU C Library header le fcntl.h, so remember to insert the line #include <fcntl.h> at the beginning of any source code le that uses them. O_RDONLY O_WRONLY O_RDWR O_READ Same as O_RDWR. GNU systems only. O_WRITE O_EXEC O_CREAT O_EXCL O_TRUNC Same as O_WRONLY. GNU systems only. Open the le for executing. GNU systems only. The le will be created if it doesnt already exist. If O_CREAT is set as well, then open fails if the specied le exists already. Set this ag if you want to ensure you will not clobber an existing le. Truncate the le to a length of zero bytes. This option is not useful for directories or other such special les. You must have write permission for the le, but you do not need to open it for write access to truncate it (under GNU). Open the le for appending. All write operations then write the data at the end of the le. This is the only way to ensure that the data you write will always go to the end of the le, even if there are other write operations happening at the same time. Open the le for read access. Open the le for write access. Open the le for both read and write access. Same as O_RDONLY | O_WRONLY.

O_APPEND

The open function normally returns a non-negative integer le descriptor connected to the specied le. If there is an error, open will return -1 instead. In that case, you can check the errno variable to see which error occurred. In addition to the usual le name errors, open can set errno to the following values. (It can also specify a few other errors of interest only to advanced C programmers. See section Opening and Closing Files in The GNU C Library Reference Manual, for a full list of error values. See Section 16.5.1 [Usual le name errors], page 151, for a list of the usual le name errors.). EACCES The le exists but is cannot be does not have read or write access (as requested), or the le does not exist but cannot be created because the directory does not have write access. Both O_CREAT and O_EXCL are set, and the named le already exists. To open it would clobber it, so it will not be opened. Write access to the le was requested, but the le is actually a directory. Your program has too many les open.

EEXIST EISDIR EMFILE

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ENOENT ENOSPC EROFS

The le named does not exist, and O_CREAT was not specied, so the le will not be created. The le cannot be created, because the disk is out of space. The le is on a read-only le system, but either one of O_WRONLY, O_RDWR, or O_TRUNC was specied, or O_CREAT was set and the le does not exist.

See Section 16.5.3 [Closing les at a low level], page 154, for a code example using both the low-level le functions open and close.

16.5.2.1 File creation

In older C code using low-level le routines, there was a function called creat that was used for creating les. This function is still included in GNU for compatibility with older C code, but is considered obsolete. In order to create a le, instead of writing creat (lename) it is now considered better coding to practice to write the following code: open (lename, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC)

16.5.3 Closing les at a low level

To close a le descriptor, use the low-level le function close. The sole argument to close is the le descriptor you wish to close. The close function returns 0 if the call was successful, and -1 if there was an error. In addition to the usual le name error codes, it can set the system variable errno to one of the following values. It can also set errno to several other values, mostly of interest to advanced C programmers. See section Opening and Closing Files in The GNU C Library Reference Manual, for more information. EBADF The le descriptor passed to close is not valid.

Remember, close a stream by using fclose instead. This allows the necessary system bookkeeping to take place before the le is closed. Here is a code example using both the low-level le functions open and close. #include <stdio.h> #include <fcntl.h> int main() { char my_filename[] = "snazzyjazz17.txt"; int my_file_descriptor, close_err;

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/* Open my_filename for writing. Do not clobber it if it does. */ my_file_descriptor = open (my_filename, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_EXCL); if (my_file_descriptor == -1) { printf ("Open failed.\n"); } close_err = close (my_file_descriptor); if (close_err == -1) { printf ("Close failed.\n"); } return 0; } Running the above code example for the rst time should produce no errors, and should create an empty text le called snazzyjazz17.txt. Running it a second time should display the following errors on your monitor, since the le snazzyjazz17.txt already exists, and should not be clobbered according to the ags passed to open. Open failed. Close failed. Create it if it does not exist.

16.5.4 Reading les at a low level

You can read a block of information from a le with the read function. The data read is loaded directly into a buer in memory. The data can be binary as well as a text, but if the latter, no terminating newline is added. The bytes read start at the current le position; after reading them, read advances the le position to immediately after the bytes read. The read function takes three parameters. The rst one is the le descriptor from which data is to be read. The second is the buer in memory where the data read will be stored. The buer is of type void *, and can be an array or a chunk of space reserved with malloc. The nal parameter is of type size_t, and species the number of bytes to read. The return value of this function is of type ssize_t, and represents the number of bytes actually read. This might be less than the number of bytes requested if there are not enough bytes left in the le or immediately available. Reading less than the number of bytes requested does not generate an error. If the number of bytes requested is not zero, a return value of zero indicates the end of the le. This is also not an error. If you keep calling read at the end of the le, it will simply keep returning zero. If read returns at least one character, you cannot tell whether the end of the le was reached from that information, but read will return zero on the next read operation if it was. If there was an error, read returns -1. You can then check the system variable errno for one of the following error conditions, as well as the usual le name errors. (See Sec-

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tion 16.5.1 [Usual le name errors], page 151.) The read function can also return some other error conditions in errno that are mostly of interest to advanced C programmers. (See section Input and Output Primitives in The GNU C Library Reference Manual, for more information.) EBADF EIO The le descriptor passed to read is not valid, or is not open for reading. There was a hardware error. (This error code also applies to more abstruse conditions detailed in the GNU C Library manual.)

See Section 16.5.5 [Writing les at a low level], page 156, for a code example that uses the read function.

16.5.5 Writing les at a low level

You can write a block of information to a le with the write function, which is called by all high-level le writing routines, such as fwrite. It takes three parameters. The rst is the le descriptor of the le you wish to write to. The second is a buer, of type void *, that contains the data you wish to write. (It can be an array of bytes, but need not be a text string. Null characters in the data are treated in the same way as other characters.) The third parameter is of type size_t, and species the number of bytes that are to be written. The return value of this function is of type ssize_t, and indicates the number of bytes actually written. This may be the same as the third parameter (the number of bytes to be written), but may be less; you should always call write in a loop, and iterate the loop until all data has been written. If there is an error, write returns -1. The write function will return the following error codes in the system variable errno, as well as the usual le name errors. (See Section 16.5.1 [Usual le name errors], page 151.) EBADF EFBIG EIO EINTR ENOSPC The le descriptor specied is invalid, or is not open for writing. If the data were written, the le written to would become too large. There has been a hardware error. The write operation was temporarily interrupted. The device containing the le is full.

In addition to the error codes above, write can return some error codes that are mainly of interest to advanced C programmers. If write fails, you should check errno to see if the error was EINTR; if it was, you should repeat the write call each time. Even though low-level le routines do not use buering, and once you call write, your data can be read from the le immediately, it may take up to a minute before your data is physically written to disk. You can call the fsync routine (see below) to ensure that all data is written to the le; this usage is roughly analogous to the high-level le routine fflush. The fsync routine takes a single parameter, the le descriptor to synchronise. It does not return a value until all data has been written. If no error occurred, it returns a 0; otherwise, it returns -1 and sets the system variable errno to one of the following values:

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EBADF EINVAL

The le descriptor specied is invalid. No synchronization is possible because the system does not implement it.

Here is a code example that demonstrates the use of the write, read, and fsync functions. (See Section 16.5.4 [Reading les at a low level], page 155, for more information on read.) #include <stdio.h> #include <fcntl.h> int main() { char my_write_str[] = "1234567890"; char my_read_str[100]; char my_filename[] = "snazzyjazz.txt"; int my_file_descriptor, close_err; /* Open the file. Clobber it if it exists. */ my_file_descriptor = open (my_filename, O_RDWR | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC); /* Write 10 bytes of data and make sure its written */ write (my_file_descriptor, (void *) my_write_str, 10); fsync (my_file_descriptor); /* Seek the beginning of the file */ lseek (my_file_descriptor, 0, SEEK_SET); /* Read 10 bytes of data */ read (my_file_descriptor, (void *) my_read_str, 10); /* Terminate the data weve read with a null character */ my_read_str[10] = \0; printf ("String read = %s.\n", my_read_str); close (my_file_descriptor); return 0; }

16.5.6 Finding le positions at a low level

If you want to nd a particular le position within a le, using a low-level le routine, you can call the lseek function. This is very similar to the high-level le routine fseek, except that it accepts a le descriptor rather than a stream as an argument. The lseek function species the le position for the next read or write operation. (See Section 16.1.4 [File position], page 120, for more information on le positions.) The lseek function takes three parameters. The rst parameter is the le descriptor. The second is of type off_t and species the number of bytes to move the le position indicator. The third argument and the third parameter is a constant that species whether

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the oset is relative to the beginning of the le (SEEK_SET), to the current le position (SEEK_CUR), or to the end of the le (SEEK_END). If SEEK_CUR or SEEK_END is used, the oset specied can be positive or negative. If you specify SEEK_END, set the position past the current end of the le, and actually write data, you will extend the le with zeroes up to the position you specify. However, the blocks of zeroes are not actually written to disk, so the le takes up less space on disk than it seems to; this is called a sparse le. The return value of lseek is of type off_t and normally contains the resulting le position, as measured in bytes from the beginning of the le. If you wish to read the current le position, therefore, you can specify an oset of 0 and a third parameter of SEEK_CUR, as follows: le position = lseek (le descriptor, 0, SEEK_CUR); If there was an error, lseek returns a -1 and sets the system variable errno to one of the following values: EBADF EINVAL ESPIPE The le descriptor specied is invalid. Either the third parameter of lseek is invalid, or the le oset is invalid. The le descriptor corresponds to an object that cannot be positioned, such as a terminal device.

The lseek function is called by many high-level le position functions, including fseek, rewind, and ftell.

16.5.7 Deleting les at a low level

If you want to delete a le, you can use the low-level le routine unlink, as declared in the le unistd.h. Simply pass this routine the name of the le you wish to delete. If this is the only name the le has (that is, if no one has created a hard link to the le with the link function, the GNU command ln, or something similar), then the le itself will be deleted; otherwise, only that name will be deleted. (See the section "Hard Links" in the GNU C Library manual for more information on hard links.) If the le is open when unlink is called, unlink will wait for the le to be closed before it deletes it. The unlink function returns 0 if the le or le name was successfully deleted. If there was an error, unlink returns -1. In addition to the usual le name errors, unlink can set errno to the following values. (See Section 16.5.1 [Usual le name errors], page 151, for a list of the usual le name errors.) EACCES EBUSY ENOENT EPERM EROFS Your program does not have permission to delete the le from the directory that contains it. The le is currently being used by the system and cannot be deleted. The le name to be deleted does not exist. Your program tried to delete a directory with unlink; this is not permitted under GNU. (See remove below.) The le name is on a read-only le system and cannot be deleted.

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If you wish to delete a directory rather than an ordinary le, use the rmdir function. Simply pass it the name of an empty directory you wish to delete. It acts like unlink in most respects, except that it can return an extra error code in the system variable errno: ENOTEMPTY The directory was not empty, so cannot be deleted. This code is synonymous with EEXIST, but GNU always returns ENOTEMPTY.

16.5.8 Renaming les at a low level

If you want to rename a le, you can use the rename function, which takes two parameters. The rst parameter is a string containing the old name of the le, and the second is a string containing the new name. (As with unlink, this function only operates on one of the names of a le, if the le has hard links. See Section 16.5.7 [Deleting les at a low level], page 158, for caveats and information on hard links.) Both the new name and the old name must be on the same le system. Any le in the same directory that has the same name as the new le name will be deleted in the process of renaming the le. If rename fails, it will return -1. In addition to the usual le name errors, unlink can set errno to the following values. (See Section 16.5.1 [Usual le name errors], page 151, for a list of the usual le name errors.) EACCES Either one of the directories in question (either the one containing the old name or the one containing the new name) refuses write permission, or the new name and the old name are directories, and write permission is refused for at least one of them. One of the directories used by the old name or the new name is being used by the system and cannot be changed. The directory was not empty, so cannot be deleted. This code is synonymous with EEXIST, but GNU always returns ENOTEMPTY. EINVAL EISDIR EMLINK ENOENT ENOSPC EROFS EXDEV The old name is a directory that contains the new name. The new name is a directory, but the old name is not. The parent directory of the new name would contain too many entries if the new name were created. The old name does not exist. The directory that would contain the new name has no room for another entry, and cannot be expanded. The rename operation would involve writing on a read-only le system. The new name and the old name are on dierent le systems.

EBUSY ENOTEMPTY

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16.6 Questions
1. What are the following? 1. File name 2. File descriptor 3. Stream 2. What is a pseudo-device name? 3. Where does stdin usually get its input? 4. Where does stdout usually send its output? 5. Write a program that simply prints out the following string to the screen: 6.23e+00. 6. Investigate what happens when you type the wrong conversion specier in a program. e.g. try printing an integer with %f or a oating point number with %c. This is bound to go wrong but how will it go wrong? 7. What is wrong with the following statements? 1. printf (x); 2. printf ("%d"); 3. printf (); 4. printf ("Number = %d"); 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. Hint: if you dont know, try them in a program! What is a whitespace character? Write a program that aceepts two integers from the user, multiplies them together, and prints the answer on your printer. Try to make the input as safe as possible. Write a program that simply echoes all the input to the output. Write a program that strips all space characters out of the input and replaces each string of them with a single newline character. The scanf function always takes pointer arguments. True or false? What is the basic dierence between high-level and low-level le routines? Write a statement that opens a high level le for reading. Write a statement that opens a low level le for writing. Write a program that checks for illegal characters in text les. The only valid characters are ASCII codes 10, 13, and 32..126. What statement performs formatted writing to text les? Poke around in the header les on your system so you can see what is dened where.

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This chapter explains, step by step, how to create a real program that meets GNU standards for a command-line interface. It also discusses how to create a program whose source is split into multiple les, and how to compile it, with or without the GNU utility make. Finally, it discusses how to create a code library, in case you write some useful functions that you want to share with other programmers. Putting it all together.

17.1 argc and argv

So far, all the programs we have written can be run with a single command. For example, if we compile an executable called myprog, we can run it from within the same directory with the following command at the GNU/Linux command line: ./myprog However, what if you want to pass information from the command line to the program you are running? Consider a more complex program like GCC. To compile the hypothetical myprog executable, we type something like the following at the command line: gcc -o myprog myprog.c The character strings -o, myprog, and myprog.c are all arguments to the gcc command. (Technically gcc is an argument as well, as we shall see.) Command-line arguments are very useful. After all, C functions wouldnt be very useful if you couldnt ever pass arguments to them adding the ability to pass arguments to programs makes them that much more useful. In fact, all the arguments you pass on the command line end up as arguments to the main function in your program. Up until now, the skeletons we have used for our C programs have looked something like this: #include <stdio.h> int main() { return 0; } From now on, our examples may look a bit more like this: #include <stdio.h> int main (int argc, char *argv[]) { return 0; }

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As you can see, main now has arguments. The name of the variable argc stands for argument count; argc contains the number of arguments passed to the program. The name of the variable argv stands for argument vector. A vector is a one-dimensional array, and argv is a one-dimensional array of strings. Each string is one of the arguments that was passed to the program. For example, the command line gcc -o myprog myprog.c would result in the following values internal to GCC: argc argv[0] argv[1] argv[2] argv[3] 4 gcc -o myprog myprog.c

As you can see, the rst argument (argv[0]) is the name by which the program was called, in this case gcc. Thus, there will always be at least one argument to a program, and argc will always be at least 1. The following program accepts any number of command-line arguments and prints them out: #include <stdio.h> int main (int argc, char *argv[]) { int count; printf ("This program was called with \"%s\".\n",argv[0]); if (argc > 1) { for (count = 1; count < argc; count++) { printf("argv[%d] = %s\n", count, argv[count]); } } else { printf("The command had no other arguments.\n"); } return 0; } If you name your executable fubar, and call it with the command ./fubar a b c, it will print out the following text: This program was called with "./fubar". argv[1] = a argv[2] = b argv[3] = c

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17.2 Processing command-line options

It is easy, though tedious to pull options directly out of the argv vector with your own routines. It is slightly less tedious to use the standard C option-processing function getopt, or the enhanced GNU version of the same function, getopt_long, which permits GNU-style long options (for example, --quiet as opposed to -q). The best option of all is to use the argp interface for processing options. Professionally written programs provide the user with standard and useful options. The argp function provides for these. For the modest price of setting up your command line arguments in a structured way, and with surprisingly few lines of code, you can obtain all the perks of a real GNU program, such as automagically-generated output to the --help, --usage, and --version options, as dened by the GNU coding standards. Using argp results in a more consistent look-and-feel for programs that use it, and makes it less likely that the built-in documentation for a program will be wrong or out of date. POSIX, the Portable Operating System Interface standard, recommends the following conventions for command-line arguments. The argp interface makes implementing them easy. Command-line arguments are options if they begin with a hyphen (-). Multiple options may follow a hyphen in a cluster if they do not take arguments. Thus, -abc and -a -b -c are the same. Option names are single alphanumeric characters. Options may require an argument. For example, the -o option of the ld command requires an output le name. The whitespace separating an option and its argument is optional. Thus, -o foo and -ofoo are the same. Options usually precede non-option arguments. (In fact, argp is more exible than this; if you want to suppress this exibility, dene the _POSIX_OPTION_ORDER environment variable.) The argument -- terminates all options; all following command-line arguments are considered non-option arguments, even if they begin with a hyphen. A single hyphen as an argument is considered a non-option argument; by convention, it is used to specify input from standard input or output to standard output. Options may appear in any order, even multiple times. The meaning of this is left to the application. In addition, GNU adds long options, like the --help, --usage, and --version options mentioned above. A long option starts with --, which is then followed by a string of alphanumeric characters and hyphens. Option names are usually one to three words long, with hyphens to separate words. Users can abbreviate the option names as long as the abbreviations are unique. A long option (such as --verbose) often has a short-option synonym (such as -v). Long options can accept optional (that is, non-necessary) arguments. You can specify an argument for a long option as follows:

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--option-name=value You may not type whitespace between the option name and the equals sign, or between the equals sign and the option value.

17.2.1 argp description

This section will describe how to write a simple program that implements most of the standards mentioned above. It assumes some knowledge of advanced C data structures that we have not yet covered in this book; if you are confused, you might want to consult the chapter that discusses this material. (See Chapter 19 [More data types], page 197.) Note that we are only discussing the basics of argp in this chapter; to read more about this complicated and exible facility of the GNU C Library, consult section Parsing Program Options with Argp in The GNU C Library Reference Manual. Nevertheless, what you learn in this chapter may be all you need to develop a program that is compliant with GNU coding standards, with respect to command-line options. The main interface to argp is the argp_parse function. Usually, the only argumentparsing code you will need in main is a call to this function. The rst parameter it takes is of type const struct argp *argp, and species an ARGP structure (see below). (A value of zero is the same as a structure containing all zeros.) The second parameter is simply argc, the third simply argv. The fourth parameter is a set of ags that modify the parsing behaviour; setting this to zero usually doesnt hurt unless youre doing something fancy, and the same goes for the fth parameter. The sixth parameter can be useful; in the example below, we use it to pass information from main to our function parse_opt, which does most of the work of initalizing internal variables (elds in the arguments structure) based on command-line options and arguments. The argp_parse returns a value of type error_t: usually either 0 for success, ENOMEM if a memory allocation error occurred, or EINVAL if an unknown option or argument was met with. For this example, we are using only the rst four elds in ARGP, which are usually all that is needed. The rest of the elds will default to zero. The four elds are, in order: 1. OPTIONS: A pointer to a vector the elements of which are of type struct argp_option, which contains four elds. The vector elements specify which options this parser understands. If you assign your option structure by initializing the array as we do in this sections main example, unspecied elds will default to zero, and need not be specied. The whole vector may contain zero if there are no options at all. It should in any case be terminated by an entry with a zero in all elds (as we do by specifying the last item in the options vector to be {0} in the main example below. The four main argp_option structure elds are as follows. (We will ignore the fth one, which is relatively unimportant and will simply default to zero if you do not specify it.) 1. NAME: The name of this options long option (may be zero). To specify multiple names for an option, follow it with additional entries, with the OPTION_ALIAS ag set.

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2. KEY: The integer key to pass to the PARSER function when parsing the current option; this is the same as the name of the current options short option, if it is a printable ASCII character. 3. ARG: The name of this options argument, if any. 4. FLAGS: Flags describing this option. You can specify multiple ags with logical OR (for example, OPTION_ARG_OPTIONAL | OPTION_ALIAS). Some of the available options are: OPTION_ARG_OPTIONAL: The argument to the current option is optional. OPTION_ALIAS: The current option is an alias for the previous option. OPTION_HIDDEN: Dont show the current option in --help output. 5. DOC: A documentation string for the current option; will be shown in --help output. 2. PARSER: A pointer to a function to be called by argp for each option parsed. It should return one of the following values: 0: Success. ARGP_ERR_UNKNOWN: The given key was not recognized. An errno value indicating some other error. (See Section 16.5.1 [Usual le name errors], page 151.) The parser function takes the following arguments: 1. KEY: An integer specifying which argument this is, taken from the KEY eld in each argp_option structure, or else a key with a special meaning, such as one of the following: ARGP_KEY_ARG: The current command-line argument is not an option. ARGP_KEY_END: All command-line arguments have been parsed. 2. ARG: The string value of the current command-line argument, or NULL if it has none. 3. STATE: A pointer to an argp_state structure, containing information about the parsing state, such as the following elds: 1. input: The same as the last parameter to argp_parse. We use this in the main code example below to pass information between the main and parse_ opt functions. 2. arg_num: The number of the current non-option argument being parsed. 3. ARGS_DOC: If non-zero, a string describing how the non-option arguments should look. It is only used to print the Usage: message. If it contains newlines, the strings separated by them are considered alternative usage patterns, and printed on separate lines (subsequent lines are preceded by or: rather than Usage:.

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4. DOC: If non-zero, a descriptive string about this program. It will normally be printed before the options in a help message, but if you include a vertical tab character (\v), the part after the vertical tab will be printed following the options in the output to the --help option. Conventionally, the part before the options is just a short string that says what the program does, while the part afterwards is longer and describes the program in more detail.

There are also some utility functions associated with argp, such as argp_usage, which prints out the standard usage message. We use this function in the parse_opt function in the following example. See section Functions For Use in Argp Parsers in The GNU C Library Reference Manual, for more of these utility functions.

17.2.2 argp example

Here is a code example that uses argp to parse command-line options. Remember, to compile this example, copy it to a le called something like argex.c, then compile it with the command gcc -o argex argex.c and run the resulting binary with the command ./argex.

#include <stdio.h> #include <argp.h> const char *argp_program_version = "argex 1.0"; const char *argp_program_bug_address = "<[email protected]>"; /* This structure is used by main to communicate with parse_opt. */ struct arguments { char *args[2]; /* ARG1 and ARG2 */ int verbose; /* The -v flag */ char *outfile; /* Argument for -o */ char *string1, *string2; /* Arguments for -a and -b */ };

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/* OPTIONS. Field 1 in ARGP. Order of fields: {NAME, KEY, ARG, FLAGS, DOC}. */ static struct argp_option options[] = { {"verbose", v, 0, 0, "Produce verbose output"}, {"alpha", a, "STRING1", 0, "Do something with STRING1 related to the letter A"}, {"bravo", b, "STRING2", 0, "Do something with STRING2 related to the letter B"}, {"output", o, "OUTFILE", 0, "Output to OUTFILE instead of to standard output"}, {0} }; /* PARSER. Field 2 in ARGP. Order of parameters: KEY, ARG, STATE. */ static error_t parse_opt (int key, char *arg, struct argp_state *state) { struct arguments *arguments = state->input; switch (key) { case v: arguments->verbose break; case a: arguments->string1 break; case b: arguments->string2 break; case o: arguments->outfile break;

= 1;

= arg;

= arg;

= arg;

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case ARGP_KEY_ARG: if (state->arg_num >= 2) { argp_usage(state); } arguments->args[state->arg_num] = arg; break; case ARGP_KEY_END: if (state->arg_num < 2) { argp_usage (state); } break; default: return ARGP_ERR_UNKNOWN; } return 0; } /* ARGS_DOC. Field 3 in ARGP. A description of the non-option command-line arguments that we accept. */ static char args_doc[] = "ARG1 ARG2"; /* DOC. Field 4 in ARGP. Program documentation. */ static char doc[] = "argex -- A program to demonstrate how to code command-line options and arguments.\vFrom the GNU C Tutorial."; /* The ARGP structure itself. */ static struct argp argp = {options, parse_opt, args_doc, doc}; /* The main function. Notice how now the only function call needed to process all command-line options and arguments nicely is argp_parse. */ int main (int argc, char **argv) { struct arguments arguments; FILE *outstream;

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char waters[] = "a place to stay enough to eat somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street where you can speak out loud about your doubts and fears and whats more no-one ever disappears you never hear their standard issue kicking in your door you can relax on both sides of the tracks and maniacs dont blow holes in bandsmen by remote control and everyone has recourse to the law and no-one kills the children anymore and no-one kills the children anymore --\"the gunners dream\", Roger Waters, 1983\n"; /* Set argument defaults */ arguments.outfile = NULL; arguments.string1 = ""; arguments.string2 = ""; arguments.verbose = 0; /* Where the magic happens */ argp_parse (&argp, argc, argv, 0, 0, &arguments); /* Where do we send output? */ if (arguments.outfile) outstream = fopen (arguments.outfile, "w"); else outstream = stdout; /* Print argument values */ fprintf (outstream, "alpha = %s\nbravo = %s\n\n", arguments.string1, arguments.string2); fprintf (outstream, "ARG1 = %s\nARG2 = %s\n\n", arguments.args[0], arguments.args[1]); /* If in verbose mode, print song stanza */ if (arguments.verbose) fprintf (outstream, waters); return 0; } Compile the code, then experiment! For example, here is the program output if you simply type argex: Usage: argex [OPTION...] ARG1 ARG2 Try argex --help or argex --usage for more information. Here is the output from argex --usage:

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Usage: argex [-v?V] [-a STRING1] [-b STRING2] [-o OUTFILE] [--alpha=STRING1] [--bravo=STRING2] [--output=OUTFILE] [--verbose] [--help] [--usage] [--version] ARG1 ARG2

Here is the output from argex --help:

Usage: argex [OPTION...] ARG1 ARG2 argex -- A program to demonstrate how to code command-line options and arguments. -a, -b, -o, -v, -?, --alpha=STRING1 --bravo=STRING2 --output=OUTFILE --verbose --help --usage -V, --version Do something with STRING1 related to the letter A Do something with STRING2 related to the letter B Output to OUTFILE instead of to standard output Produce verbose output Give this help list Give a short usage message Print program version

Mandatory or optional arguments to long options are also mandatory or optional for any corresponding short options. From the GNU C Tutorial. Report bugs to <[email protected]>.

Here is the output from argex Foo Bar:

alpha = bravo = ARG1 = Foo ARG2 = Bar

And nally, here is the output from argex --verbose -a 123 --bravo=456 Foo Bar:

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alpha = 123 bravo = 456 ARG1 = Foo ARG2 = Bar a place to stay enough to eat somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street where you can speak out loud about your doubts and fears and whats more no-one ever disappears you never hear their standard issue kicking in your door you can relax on both sides of the tracks and maniacs dont blow holes in bandsmen by remote control and everyone has recourse to the law and no-one kills the children anymore and no-one kills the children anymore --"the gunners dream", Roger Waters, 1983 You can of course also send the output to a text le with the -o or --output option.

17.3 Environment variables

Sometimes it is useful to communicate with a program in a semi-permanent way, so that you do not need to specify a command-line option every time you type the command to execute the program. One way to do this is to generate a conguration le, in which you can store data that will be used by the program every time it is run. This approach is typically useful if you have a large amount of data that you want to pass to a program every time it runs, or if you want the program itself to be able to change the data. However, environment variables provide a more lightweight approach. Environment variables, sometimes called shell variables, are usually set with the export command in the shell. (This section assumes you are using the GNU Bash shell.) Standard environment variables are used for information about your home directory, terminal type, and so on; you can dene additional variables for other purposes. The set of all environment variables that have values is collectively known as the environment. Names of environment variables are case-sensitive, and it is good form to use all uppercase letters when dening a new variable; certainly this is the case for all system-dened environment variables. The value of an environment variable can be any string that does not contain a null character (since the null character is used to terminate the string value). Environment variables are stored in a special array that can be read by your main function. Here is the skeleton for a main function that can read environment variables; notice we have added a third parameter to main, called envp, which comes after argc and argv.

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#include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main (int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[]) { return 0; } Notice that envp is an array of strings, just as argv is. It consists of a list of the environment variables of your shell, in the following format: NAME=value Just as you can manually process command-line options from argv, so can you manually process environment variables from envp. However, the simplest way to access the value of an environment variable is with the getenv function, dened in the system header stdlib.h. It takes a single argument, a string containing the name of the variable whose value you wish to discover. It returns that value, or a null pointer if the variable is not dened. #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main (int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[]) { char *home, *host; home = getenv("HOME"); host = getenv("HOSTNAME"); printf ("Your home directory is %s on %s.\n", home, host); return 0; } When you run this code, it will print out a line like the following one. Your home directory is /home/rwhe on linnaeus. Note: Do not modify strings returned from getenv; they are pointers to data that belongs to the system. If you want to process a value returned from getenv, copy it to another string rst with strcpy. (See Chapter 15 [Strings], page 105.) If you want to change an environment variable from within your program (not usually advisable), use the putenv, setenv, and unsetenv functions. See section Environment Access in The GNU C Library Reference Manual, for more information on these functions.

17.4 Compiling multiple les

It is usually very simple to compile a program that has been divided across multiple source les. Instead of typing

Writing a makele

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gcc -o executable sourcele.c you would type gcc -o executable sourcele 1.c sourcele 2.c ... sourcele n.c For example, if you were building a simple database program called mydb, the command line might look something like this: gcc -o mydb main.c keyboard_io.c db_access.c sorting.c Of course, if (say) db_access.c were lengthy, it might take a long time to compile your program every time you executed this command, even if you only made a small change in one of the other les. To avoid this, you might want to compile each of the source les into its own object le, then link them together to make your program. If you did, each time you made a small change in one le, you need only recompile that single le and then link the object les together again, potentially a great savings in time and patience. Here is how to generate a permanent object le for db_access.c. gcc -c db_access.c This would generate a permanent object code le called db_access.o, indicated by the sux .o. You would perform this step when needed for each of the source code les, then link them together with the following command line: gcc -o mydb main.o keyboard_io.o db_access.o sorting.o You might even put the various commands into a shell le, so that you wouldnt need to type them repeatedly. For example, you could put the last command line into a shell le called build, so that all you would need to do to build your executable from object code les is type the following line. ./build For programs on a very small scale, this approach works quite well. If your project grows even slightly complex, however, you will have a hard time keeping track of which object les are fresh and which need to be recreated because the corresponding source les have been changed since their last compilation. Thats where the GNU utility make comes in. (See Section 17.5 [Writing a makele], page 173.)

17.5 Writing a makele

The GNU make program automatically determines which pieces of a large program need to be recompiled, and issues the commands to compile them. You need a le called a makele to tell make what to do. Most often, the makele tells make how to compile and link a program. In this section, we will discuss a simple makele that describes how to compile and link a text editor which consists of eight C source les and three header les. The makele can also tell make how to run miscellaneous commands when explicitly asked (for example, to remove certain les as a clean-up operation). Although the examples in this section show C programs, you can use make with any programming language whose compiler can be run with a shell command. Indeed, make is not limited to programs. You can use it to describe any task where some les must be updated automatically from others whenever the others change.

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Your makele describes the relationships among les in your program and provides commands for updating each le. In a program, typically, the executable le is updated from object les, which are in turn made by compiling source les. Once a suitable makele exists, each time you change some source les, this simple shell command: make suces to perform all necessary recompilations. The make program uses the makele database and the last-modication times of the les to decide which of the les need to be updated. For each of those les, it issues the commands recorded in the database. You can provide command line arguments to make to control which les should be recompiled, or how. When make recompiles the editor, each changed C source le must be recompiled. If a header le has changed, each C source le that includes the header le must be recompiled to be safe. Each compilation produces an object le corresponding to the source le. Finally, if any source le has been recompiled, all the object les, whether newly made or saved from previous compilations, must be linked together to produce the new executable editor.

17.5.1 What a Rule Looks Like

A simple makele consists of rules with the following shape: target ... : prerequisites ... command ... ... A target is usually the name of a le that is generated by a program; examples of targets are executable or object les. A target can also be the name of an action to carry out, such as clean. A prerequisite is a le that is used as input to create the target. A target often depends on several les. A command is an action that make carries out. A rule may have more than one command, each on its own line. Please note: you need to put a tab character at the beginning of every command line! This is a common mistake that even experienced makele writers can make. Usually a command is dened by a rule with prerequisites and serves to create a target le if any of the prerequisites change. However, the rule that species commands for the target need not have prerequisites. For example, the rule containing the delete command associated with the target clean does not have prerequisites. A rule, then, explains how and when to remake certain les which are the targets of the particular rule. make carries out the commands on the prerequisites to create or update the target. A rule can also explain how and when to carry out an action. A makele may contain other text besides rules, but a simple makele need only contain rules. Rules may look somewhat more complicated than shown in this template, but all t the pattern more or less.

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17.5.2 A simple makele

Here is a straightforward makele that describes the way an executable le called edit depends on eight object les which, in turn, depend on eight C source les and three header les. In this example, all the C les include defs.h, but only les that dene editing commands include command.h, and only low-level les that change the editor buer include buffer.h. edit : main.o kbd.o command.o display.o \ insert.o search.o files.o utils.o cc -o edit main.o kbd.o command.o display.o \ insert.o search.o files.o utils.o main.o : main.c defs.h cc -c main.c kbd.o : kbd.c defs.h command.h cc -c kbd.c command.o : command.c defs.h command.h cc -c command.c display.o : display.c defs.h buffer.h cc -c display.c insert.o : insert.c defs.h buffer.h cc -c insert.c search.o : search.c defs.h buffer.h cc -c search.c files.o : files.c defs.h buffer.h command.h cc -c files.c utils.o : utils.c defs.h cc -c utils.c clean : rm edit main.o kbd.o command.o display.o \ insert.o search.o files.o utils.o We split each long line into two lines using a backslash; this is like using one long line, but easier to read. To use this makele to create the executable le called edit, type: make To use this makele to delete the executable le and all the object les from the directory, type: make clean In the example makele, the targets include the executable le edit, and the object les main.o and kbd.o. The prerequisites are les such as main.c and defs.h. In fact, each .o le is both a target and a prerequisite. Commands include cc -c main.c and cc -c kbd.c. When a target is a le, it needs to be recompiled or relinked if any of its prerequisites change. In addition, any prerequisites that are themselves automatically generated should

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be updated rst. In this example, edit depends on each of the eight object les; the object le main.o depends on the source le main.c and on the header le defs.h. A shell command follows each line that contains a target and prerequisites. These shell commands tell make how to update the target le. A tab character must come at the beginning of every command line to distinguish command lines from other lines in the makele. (Bear in mind that make does not know anything about how the commands work. It is up to you to supply commands that will update the target le properly.) The target clean is not a le, but merely the name of an action. Since this action is not carried out as part of the other targets, clean is not a prerequisite of any other rule. Consequently, make never does anything with it unless you explicitly type make clean. Not only is this rule not a prerequisite, it does not have any prerequisites itself, so the only purpose of the rule is to run the specied commands. Targets like clean that do not refer to les but are just actions are called phony targets.

17.5.3 make in action

By default, make starts with the rst target whose name does not start with .. This is called the default goal. (Goals are the targets that make tries to update.) In the simple example of the previous section, the default goal is to update the executable program edit; therefore, we put that rule rst. Thus, when you give the command: make make reads the makele in the current directory and begins by processing the rst rule. In the example, this rule is for relinking edit; but before make can fully process this rule, it must process the rules for the les that edit depends on, which in this case are the object les. Each of these les is processed according to its own rule. These rules say to update each .o le by compiling its source le. The recompilation must be done if the source le, or any of the header les named as prerequisites, is more recent than the object le, or if the object le does not exist. The other rules are processed because their targets appear as prerequisites of the goal. If some other rule is not depended on by the goal (or anything that the goal depends on, and so forth), then that rule is not processed, unless you tell make to do so (with a command such as make clean. Before recompiling an object le, make considers updating its prerequisites (the source le and header les). This makele does not specify anything to be done for themthe .c and .h les are not the targets of any rulesso make does nothing for these les. But make can update automatically generated C programs, such as those made by Bison or Yacc, by dening the .c and .h les as targets and specifying how to create them with Bison, Yacc, or whatever other program generated them. After recompiling the appropriate object les, make decides whether to link edit. This must be done if the le edit does not exist, or if any of the object les are newer than it is. If an object le was just recompiled, it is now newer than edit, so edit is relinked. Thus, if we change the le insert.c and run make, then make will recompile that le, update insert.o, and then link edit. If we change the le command.h and run make,

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make will recompile the object les kbd.o, command.o and files.o, and then link the le edit.

17.5.4 Variables simplify makeles

In our example, we had to list all the object les twice in the rule for edit (repeated here):

edit : main.o kbd.o command.o display.o \ insert.o search.o files.o utils.o cc -o edit main.o kbd.o command.o display.o \ insert.o search.o files.o utils.o

Such duplication is error-prone; if a new object le is added to the system, we might add it to one list and forget the other. We can eliminate the risk and simplify the makele by using a variable. Variables in make enable a text string to be dened once and substituted in multiple places later. They are similar to C macros. (See Section 12.2 [Macros], page 74.)

It is standard practice for every makele to have a variable named objects, OBJECTS, objs, OBJS, obj, or OBJ that is a list of all object le names. We would dene such a variable objects with a line like this in the makele:

objects = main.o kbd.o command.o display.o \ insert.o search.o files.o utils.o

Then, in every place we want to put a list of the object le names, we can substitute the variables value by writing $(objects)

Here is how the complete simple makele looks when you use a variable for the object les:

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objects = main.o kbd.o command.o display.o \ insert.o search.o files.o utils.o edit : $(objects) cc -o edit $(objects) main.o : main.c defs.h cc -c main.c kbd.o : kbd.c defs.h command.h cc -c kbd.c command.o : command.c defs.h command.h cc -c command.c display.o : display.c defs.h buffer.h cc -c display.c insert.o : insert.c defs.h buffer.h cc -c insert.c search.o : search.c defs.h buffer.h cc -c search.c files.o : files.c defs.h buffer.h command.h cc -c files.c utils.o : utils.c defs.h cc -c utils.c clean : rm edit $(objects)

17.5.5 Letting make deduce commands

It is not necessary to spell out the commands for compiling the individual C source les, because make can gure them out: it has an implicit rule for updating a .o le from a correspondingly named .c le using a gcc -c command. For example, it will use the command gcc -c main.c -o main.o to compile main.c into main.o. We can therefore omit the commands from the rules for the object les.

When a .c le is used automatically in this way, it is also automatically added to the list of prerequisites. We can therefore omit the .c les from the prerequisites, provided we omit the commands.

Here is the entire example, with both of these changes, and the variable objects as suggested above:

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objects = main.o kbd.o command.o display.o \ insert.o search.o files.o utils.o edit : $(objects) cc -o edit $(objects) main.o : defs.h kbd.o : defs.h command.h command.o : defs.h command.h display.o : defs.h buffer.h insert.o : defs.h buffer.h search.o : defs.h buffer.h files.o : defs.h buffer.h command.h utils.o : defs.h .PHONY : clean clean : -rm edit $(objects) This is how we would write the makele in actual practice. (See Section 17.5.7 [Rules for cleaning the directory], page 180, for the complications associated with clean.) Because implicit rules are so convenient, they are important. You will see them used frequently.

17.5.6 Combining rules by prerequisite

When the objects of a makele are created by implicit rules alone, an alternative style of makele is possible. In this style of makele, you group entries by their prerequisites instead of by their targets. Here is an example of this alternative style: objects = main.o kbd.o command.o display.o \ insert.o search.o files.o utils.o edit : $(objects) cc -o edit $(objects) $(objects) : defs.h kbd.o command.o files.o : command.h display.o insert.o search.o files.o : buffer.h Here defs.h is given as a prerequisite of all the object les, and command.h and buffer.h are prerequisites of the specic object les listed for them. Whether this is better is a matter of taste: it is more compact, but some people dislike it because they nd it clearer to put all the information about each target in one place.

17.5.7 Rules for cleaning the directory

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Compiling a program is not the only thing you might want to write rules for. Makeles commonly do a few other things besides compiling a program: for example, they can often delete all the object les and executables so that the directory is clean. Here is how we could write a make rule for cleaning our example editor: clean: rm edit $(objects) In practice, we might want to write the rule in a somewhat more complicated manner to handle unanticipated situations. For example: .PHONY : clean clean : -rm edit $(objects) This prevents make from getting confused by an actual le called clean and causes it to continue in spite of errors from rm. A rule such as this should not be placed at the beginning of the makele, because we do not want it to run by default! Thus, in the example makele, we want the rule for edit, which recompiles the editor, to remain the default goal. Since clean is not a prerequisite of edit, this rule will not run at all if we give the command make with no arguments. In order to run the rule, we have to type make clean.

17.6 Building a library

We explored what libraries are and how to use them in a previous chapter. (See Chapter 13 [Libraries], page 81, if you need to refresh your memory.) You may have wondered how libraries are written in the rst place. Is the whole process too complicated for a mortal C programmer to attempt? Not at all. Suppose you have a function (or set of functions) that you would like to use widely across the various C programs you write. You might even like to make it available to other users in a convenient way. To create a code library that will enable you to achieve this, follow the sequence below. We will use a code example, but you can create your own library by taking similar steps. 1. Heres an example of the kind of function you might like to use in multiple programs. It accepts one string containing some text to print, and then prints it on the default printer. For the sake of example, the le below is named lpr_print.c.

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#include <stdio.h> void lpr_print (char *the_text) { FILE *printer; printer = popen ("lpr", "w"); fprintf (printer, the_text); pclose (printer); } (See Section 16.4 [Programming with pipes], page 149, for the rationale behind this function.) 2. Now we will create a library. To create a static library called liblprprint.a containing this function, just type the following two command lines in your GNU shell: gcc -c lpr_print.c ar rs liblprprint.a lpr_print.o The -c option to gcc produces only a .o object code le, without linking it, while the ar command (with its rs options) permits the creation of an archive le, which can contain a bundle of other les that can be re-extracted later (for example, when executing library code). In this case, we are only archiving one object code le, but in some cases, you might want to archive multiple ones. (See the man page for ar for more information.) To create a shared library called liblprprint.so instead, enter the following sequence of commands:1 gcc -c -fpic lpr_print.c gcc -shared -o liblprprint.so lpr_print.o (For the record, pic stands for position-independent code, an object-code format required for shared libraries. You might need to use the option -fPIC instead of -fpic if your library is very large.) 3. Now create a header le that will allow users access to the functions in your library. You should provide one function prototype for each function in your library. Here is a header le for the library we have created, called liblprprint.h.
1

To create library les containing multiple object les, simply include the object les on the same command line. For example, to create a static library with multiple object les, type a command such as ar rs liblprprint.a lpr_print.o lpr_print2.o lpr_ print3.o. Similarly, to create a shared library, type gcc -shared -o liblprprint.so lpr_print.o lpr_print2.o lpr_print3.o.

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/* liblprprint.h: routines in liblprprint.a and liblprprint.so */ extern void lpr_print (char *the_text); 4. Now you should put your libraries and include le somewhere your code can access them. For the sake of this example, create the directories include and lib in your home directory. Once you have done so, move the .a and .so les you have created to lib, and the .h le to include. 5. If you have taken the last step, and you want to run a program linked to a shared version of your library, you should type a line like the following into your shell (the following command line assumes you are using the Bash shell and that your home directory is named /home/fred): export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/fred/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH This command line sets an environment variable that makes the linker search the /home/fred/lib directory before it searches anywhere else. You can include it in your .bashrc or .bash_profile le. If you dont execute this command before you attempt to run a program using your shared library, you will probably receive an error. 6. Now you can write programs that use your library. Consider the following short program, called printer.c: #include <liblprprint.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main () { lpr_print ("Hello, Multiverse!\nHowarya?\n"); return 0; } To compile this program using your static library, type something like the following command line: gcc --static -I../include -L../lib -o printer printer.c -llprprint The --static option forces your static library to be linked; the default is your shared version. The -llprprint option makes GCC link in the liblprprint library, just as you would need to type -lm to link in the libm math library. The -I../include and -L../lib options specify that the compiler should look in the ../include directory for include les and in the ../lib directory for library les. This assumes that you have created the include and lib directories in your home directory as outlined above, and that you are compiling your code in a subdirectory of your home directory. If you are working two directories down, you would specify -I../../include, and so on.

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The above command line assumes you are using only one .c source code le; if you are using more than one, simply include them on the command line as well. (See Section 17.4 [Compiling multiple les], page 172.) Note: Using the --static option will force the compiler to link all libraries you are using statically. If you want to use the static version of your library, but some shared versions of other libraries, you can omit the --static option from the command line and specify the static version of your library explicitly, as follows: gcc -I../include -L../lib -o printer printer.c ../lib/liblprprint.a To compile this program using your shared library, type something like the following command line. gcc -I../include -L../lib -o printer printer.c -llprprint 7. The executable produced is called printer. Try it!

17.7 Questions
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What What What What What is the name of the preferred method for handling command-line options? does the -c option of the gcc command do? information does the argc variable contain? information does the argv variable contain? information does the envp variable contain?

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18 Advanced operators
Concise expressions In this chapter, we will examine some advanced mathematical and logical operators in C.

18.1 Hidden operators and values

Many operators in C are more versatile than they appear to be at rst glance. Take, for example, the following operators: = ++ - += -= These operators can be used in some surprising ways to make C source code elegant and compact. (See Chapter 7 [Expressions and operators], page 31, if you need a refresher in what they do.) All of them can form expressions that have their own values. Such an expression can be taken as a whole (a black box) and treated as a single value, which can then be assigned and compared to other expressions, in eect, hidden within another expression. The value of an expression is the result of the operation carried out in the expression. Increment and decrement statements have a value that is one greater than or one less than the value of the variable they act upon, respectively. Consider the following two statements: c = 5; c++; The expression c++ in the above context has the value 6. Now consider these statements: c = 5; c--; The expression c-- in the above context has the value 4.

18.1.1 Hidden assignments

Assignment expressions have values too their values are the value of the assignment. For example, the value of the expression c = 5 is 5. The fact that assignment statements have values can be used to make C code more elegant. An assignment expression can itself be assigned to a variable. For example, the expression c = 0 can be assigned to the variable b:

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b = (c = 0); or simply: b = c = 0; These equivalent statements set b and c to the value 0, provided b and c are of the same type. They are equivalent to the more usual: b = 0; c = 0; Note: Dont confuse this technique with a logical test for equality. In the above example, both b and c are set to 0. Consider the following, supercially similar, test for equality, however: b = (c == 0); In this case, b will only be assigned a zero value (FALSE) if c does not equal 0. If c does equal 0, then b will be assigned a non-zero value for TRUE, probably 1. (See Section 7.8 [Comparisons and logic], page 37, for more information.) Any number of these assignments can be strung together: a = (b = (c = (d = (e = 5)))); or simply: a = b = c = d = e = 5; This elegant syntax compresses ve lines of code into a single line. There are other uses for treating assignment expressions as values. Thanks to Cs exible syntax, they can be used anywhere a value can be used. Consider how an assignment expression might be used as a parameter to a function. The following statement gets a character from standard input and passes it to a function called process_character. process_character (input_char = getchar()); This is a perfectly valid statement in C, because the hidden assignment statements passes the value it assigns on to process_character. The assignment is carried out rst and then the process_character function is called, so this is merely a more compact way of writing the following statements. input_char = getchar(); process_character (input_char); All the same remarks apply about the specialized assignment operators +=, *=, /=, and so on. The following example makes use of a hidden assignment in a while loop to print out all values from 0.2 to 20.0 in steps of 0.2.

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#include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main () { double my_dbl = 0; while ((my_dbl += 0.2) < 20.0) printf ("%lf ", my_dbl); printf ("\n"); return 0; }

18.1.2 Postx and prex ++ and -Increment (++) and decrement (--) expressions also have values, and like assignment expressions, can be hidden away in inconspicuous places. These two operators are slightly more complicated than assignments because they exist in two forms, postx (for example, my_var++) and prex (for example, ++my_var). Postx and prex forms have subtly dierent meanings. Take the following example: int my_int = 3; printf ("%d\n", my_int++); The increment operator is hidden in the parameter list of the printf call. The variable my_int has a value before the ++ operator acts on it (3) and afterwards (4). Which value is passed to printf? Is my_int incremented before or after the printf call? This is where the two forms of the operator (postx and prex) come into play. If the increment or decrement operator is used as a prex, the operation is performed before the function call. If the operator is used as a postx, the operation is performed after the function call. In the example above, then, the value passed to printf is 3, and when the printf function returns, the value of my_int is incremented to 4. The alternative is to write int my_int = 3; printf ("%d\n", ++my_int); in which case the value 4 is passed to printf. The same remarks apply to the decrement operator as to the increment operator.

18.1.3 Arrays and hidden operators

Hidden operators can simplify dealing with arrays and strings quite a bit. Hiding operators inside array subscripts or hidding assignments inside loops can often streamline tasks such as array initialization. Consider the following example of a one-dimensional array of integers.

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#include <stdio.h> #define ARRAY_SIZE 20 /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main () { int idx, array[ARRAY_SIZE]; for (idx = 0; idx < ARRAY_SIZE; array[idx++] = 0) ; return 0; } This is a convenient way to initialize an array to zero. Notice that the body of the loop is completely empty! Strings can benet from hidden operators as well. If the standard library function strlen, which nds the length of a string, were not available, it would be easy to write it with hidden operators: #include <stdio.h> int my_strlen (char *my_string) { char *ptr; int count = 0; for (ptr = my_string; *(ptr++) != \0; count++) ; return (count); } /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main (int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[]) { char string_ex[] = "Fabulous!"; printf ("String = %s\n", string_ex); printf ("Length = %d\n", my_strlen (string_ex)); return 0; } The my_strlen function increments count while the end of string marker \0 is not found. Again, notice that the body of the loop in this function is completely empty.

18.1.4 A warning about style

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Overuse of hidden operators can produce code that is dicult to understand. See Section 22.6 [Hidden operators and style], page 229, for some cautions about when not to use them.

18.2 The comma operator

The comma operator (,) works almost like the semicolon ; that separates one C statement from another. You can separate almost any kind of C statment from another with a comma operator. The comma-separated expressions are evaluated from left to right and the value of the whole comma-separated sequence is the value of the rightmost expression in the sequence. Consider the following code example. #include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main (int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[]) { int a, b, c, d; a = (b = 2, c = 3, d = 4); printf ("a=%d\nb=%d\nc=%d\nd=%d\n", a, b, c, d); return 0; } The value of (b = 2, c = 3, d = 4) is 4 because the value of its rightmost sub-expression, d = 4, is 4. The value of a is thus also 4. When run, this example prints out the following text: a=4 b=2 c=3 d=4 The comma operator is very useful in for loops. (See Section 11.4 [The exibility of for], page 67, for an example.)

18.3 Machine-level operators

Bits and Bytes. Flags. Shifting. Bits (or binary digits), the values 0 and 1, are the lowest-level software objects in a computer; there is nothing more primitive. C gives programmers full access to bits and bit sequences, and even provides high-level operators for manipulating them. All computer data whatsoever is composed of bit strings. The word string is being used here in its more general sense of sequence; do not confuse the usage with text string. Although all text strings are bit strings, not all bit strings are text strings.

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The only dierence between a text string and a oating-point value is the way we interpret the pattern of bits in the computers memory. For the most part, we can simply ignore the low level of the computer in which computer data appears as bit strings. Systems programmers, on the other hand, such as those who wrote GNU/Linux, must frequently manipulate bits directly in order to handle ags. A ag is a bit in a bit string that can be either set (1) or cleared (0). We have run across a few ags already, such as the various ags passed to the GNU C Library functions open; the ags O_RDONLY and O_WRONLY are actually macros that specify binary values, which can be manipulated and examined with binary OR and similar functions. Flags are normally declared as integers in C. Programmers who perform bit operations on a regular basis often use either octal (base8) or hexadecimal (base-16) numbers, because every octal digit species exactly three bits, and every hexadecimal digit species four.

18.3.1 Bitwise operators

C provides the following operators for handling bit patterns: << >> | ^ & ~ <<= >>= |= ^= &= Bit-shift left by a specied number of bit positions Bit-shift right by a specied number of bit positions Bitwise inclusive OR Bitwise exclusive OR Bitwise AND Bitwise NOT Bit-shift left assignment (var = var << value) Bit-shift right assignment (var = var >> value) Exclusive OR assignment (var = var | value) Inclusive OR assignment (var = var ^ value) AND assignment (var = var & value)

The meaning and syntax of these operators is given below. Dont confuse bitwise operators (such as bitwise AND, &) with logical operators (such as logical AND, &&). Bitwise operators operate on each bit in the operand individually.

18.3.2 Shift operations

Imagine a bit string as represented by the following group of boxes. Every box represents a bit, a binary digit; the ones and zeros inside represent their values. The values written across the top are the place-values of each bit. (Just as a decimal (base-10) number has a ones place, a tens place, a hundreds place, a thousands place, and so on, a binary (base-2) number has the places 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.) The number after the equals sign shows the value of the bit string in decimal notation.

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128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 ------------------------------| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | -------------------------------

Bit-shift operators move whole bit strings left or right. The syntax of the bit-shift left operation is value << positions; that of bit-shift right is value >> positions; So for example, using the bit string (1) above, the value of 1 << 1 is 2, because the bit string would have been moved one position to the left: 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 ------------------------------| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -------------------------------

Notice how the space to the right of the shifted bit string is simply lled with a 0. Similarly, the value of 1 << 4 is 16, because the original bit string is shifted left four places: 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 ------------------------------| 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -------------------------------

16

Notice, again, that the spaces to the right of the original bit string are lled out with zeros. Now for a slightly more dicult one. The value of 6 << 2 is 24. Here is the bit string representing 6: 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 ------------------------------| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ------------------------------Shift 6 left 2 places: 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 ------------------------------| 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -------------------------------

24

Notice that every shift left multiplies by 2. (Since 6 << 2 means to shift 6 left twice, the result is 24.) As you might expect, every shift right performs (integer) division by two on the number. If a bit is shifted beyond the ones position (the rightmost box), however, then it drops o and is lost. So the following equalities hold: 1 2 2 n >> >> >> >> 1 1 2 n == == == == 0 1 0 0

One common use of bit-shifting is to scan through the bits of a bit-string one by one in a loop. This is done with bit masks, as described in the next section.

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18.3.3 Truth tables and bit masks

The binary operators AND (&), OR (inclusive OR, |) and XOR (exclusive OR, also called EOR, ^) perform comparisons, or masking operations, between two bit strings. They are also binary operators in the sense that they take two operands. There is another operator called NOT (~) that is a unary operator; it takes only one operand. These bitwise operations are best summarized by truth tables. Each truth table for a binary operator (that is, one with two operands), indicates what the result of the operation is for every possible combination of two bits.

18.3.3.1 Bitwise NOT

The unary operator NOT (~) simply generates the ones complement of the bit string; that is, it returns the same bit string, with all ones replaced with zeros and all zeros replaced with ones. As a truth table this would be summarized as follows: ~value 0 1 result 1 0

18.3.3.2 Bitwise AND

Bitwise AND operates on two values, for example 0 & 1. Both the rst value and the second value must be 1 in order for the result to be 1. As a truth table this would be summarized as follows: value1 0 0 1 1 value2 0 1 0 1 result 0 0 0 1

18.3.3.3 Bitwise inclusive OR

Bitwise OR operates on two values, for example 0 | 1. The result is 1 if the rst value or the second value is 1, or both are 1. As a truth table this would be summarized as follows: value1 0 0 1 1 value2 0 1 0 1 result 0 1 1 1

18.3.3.4 Bitwise exclusive OR (XOR/EOR)

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Bitwise XOR operates on two values, for example 0 ^ 1. The result is 1 if the rst value or the second value is 1, but not if both are 1 (hence the name exclusive OR). As a truth table this would be summarized as follows: value1 0 0 1 1 value2 0 1 0 1 result 0 1 1 0

18.3.3.5 Masks
Bit strings and bitwise operators are often used to make masks. A mask is a bit string that ts over another bit string and produces a desired result, such as singling out particular bits from the second bit string, when the two bit strings are operated upon. This is particularly useful for handling ags; programmers often wish to know whether one particular ag is set in a bit string, but may not care about the others. For example, you might create a mask that only allows the ag of interest to have a non-zero value, then AND that mask with the bit string containing the ag. Consider the following mask, and two bit strings from which we want to extract the nal bit: mask = 00000001 value1 = 10011011 value2 = 10011100 mask & value1 == 00000001 mask & value2 == 00000000 The zeros in the mask mask o the rst seven bits and only let the last bit show through. (In the case of the rst value, the last bit is 1; in the case of the second value, the last bit is 0.) Alternatively, masks can be built up by operating on several ags, usually with inclusive OR: flag1 = 00000001 flag2 = 00000010 flag3 = 00000100 mask = flag1 | flag2 | flag3 mask == 00000111 See Section 16.5.2 [Opening les at a low level], page 152, for a code example that actually uses bitwise OR to join together several ags. It should be emphasized that the ag and mask examples are written in pseudo-code, that is, a means of expressing information that resembles source code, but cannot be compiled. It is not possible to use binary numbers directly in C.

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The following code example shows how bit masks and bit-shifts can be combined. It accepts a decimal number from the user between 0 and 128, and prints out a binary number in response.

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#include <stdio.h> #define NUM_OF_BITS 8 /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main () { char *my_string; int input_int, args_assigned; int nbytes = 100; short my_short, bit; int idx; /* This hex number is the same as binary 10000000 */ short MASK = 0x80; args_assigned = 0; input_int = -1; while ((args_assigned != 1) || (input_int < 0) || (input_int > 128)) { puts ("Please enter an integer from 0 to 128."); my_string = (char *) malloc (nbytes + 1); getline (&my_string, &nbytes, stdin); args_assigned = sscanf (my_string, "%d", &input_int); if ((args_assigned != 1) || (input_int < 0) || (input_int > 128)) puts ("\nInput invalid!"); } my_short = (short) input_int; printf ("Binary value = "); /* Convert decimal numbers into binary Keep shifting my_short by one to the left and test the highest bit. This does NOT preserve the value of my_short! */ for (idx = 0; idx < NUM_OF_BITS; idx++) { bit = my_short & MASK; printf ("%d", bit/MASK); my_short <<= 1; } printf ("\n"); return 0; }

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18.4 Questions 18
1. Hidden operators can be used in return statements, for example, return (++x); Would there be any point in writing the following? return (x++); 2. What distinguishes a bit string from an ordinary variable? Can any variable be a bit string? 3. What is the dierence between an inclusive OR operation and an exclusive OR operation? 4. Find out what the decimal values of the following operations are. 1. 7 & 2 2. 1 & 1 3. 15 & 3 4. 15 & 7 5. 15 & 7 & 3 Try to explain the results. (Hint: sketch out the numbers as bit strings.) 5. Find out what the decimal values of the following operations are. 1. 1 | 2 2. 1 | 2 | 3 6. Find out the decimal values of the following operations. 1. 1 & (~1) 2. 23 & (~23) 3. 2012 & (~2012) (Hint: write a short program to work them out.)

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19 More data types

There are still a few data types in C that we have not discussed. Actually, since C allows you to dene new data types at will, no one can ever cover all possibilities. We will only discuss the most important examples. enum void volatile const Type specier for variables that can have a set of dierent values. Type specier for empty data. Type qualier for data that changes independently of the program. Type qualier for data that cannot change.

In addition, there are two data types called struct and union that are so important, they have received their own chapter. (See Chapter 20 [Data structures], page 205, for more information on struct and union.)

19.1 enum
The enum type specier is short for enumerated data. The user can dene a xed set of words that a variable of type enum can take as its value. The words are assigned integer values by the compiler so that code can compare enum variables. Consider the following code example: #include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main () { enum compass_direction { north, east, south, west }; enum compass_direction my_direction; my_direction = west; return 0; } This example denes an enumerated variable type called compass_direction, which can be assigned one of four enumerated values: north, east, south, or west. It then declares a variable called my_direction of the enumerated compass_direction type, and assigns my_direction the value west. Why go to all this trouble? Because enumerated data types allow the programmer to forget about any numbers that the computer might need in order to process a list of words,

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and simply concentrate on using the words themselves. Its a higher-level way of doing things; in fact, at a lower level, the computer assigns each possible value in an enumerated data type an integer cconstant one that you do not need to worry about. Enumerated variables have a natural partner in the switch statement, as in the following code example. #include <stdio.h> enum compass_direction { north, east, south, west }; enum compass_direction get_direction() { return south; } /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main () { enum compass_direction my_direction; puts ("Which way are you going?"); my_direction = get_direction(); switch (my_direction) { case north: puts("North? Say hello to the polar bears!"); break; case south: puts("South? Say hello to Tux the penguin!"); break; case east: puts("If you go far enough east, youll be west!"); break; case west: puts("If you go far enough west, youll be east!"); break; } return 0; } In this example, the compass_direction type has been made global, so that the get_ direction function can return that type. The main function prompts the user, Which way

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are you going?, then calls the dummy function get_direction. In a real program, such a function would accept input from the user and return an enumerated value to main, but in this case it merely returns the value south. The output from this code example is therefore as follows: Which way are you going? South? Say hello to Tux the penguin! As mentioned above, enumerated values are converted into integer values internally by the compiler. It is practically never necessary to know what integer values the compiler assigns to the enumerated words in the list, but it may be useful to know the order of the enumerated items with respect to one another. The following code example demonstrates this. #include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main () { enum planets { Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto }; enum planets planet1, planet2; planet1 = Mars; planet2 = Earth; if (planet1 > planet2) puts ("Mars is farther from the Sun than Earth is."); else puts ("Earth is farther from the Sun than Mars is."); return 0; } The output from this example reads as follows: Mars is farther from the Sun than Earth is.

19.2 void

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The void data type was introduced to make C syntactically consistent. The main reason for void is to declare functions that have no return value. The word void is therefore used in the sense of empty rather than that of invalid. C functions are considered by the compiler to return type int unless otherwise specied. Although the data returned by a function can legally be ignored by the function calling it, the void data type was introduced by the ANSI standard so that C compilers can issue warnings when an integer value is not returned by a function that is supposed to return one. If you want to write a function that does not return a value, simply declare it void. A function declared void has no return value and simply returns with the command return;. Variables can be declared void as well as functions: void my_variable; void *my_pointer; A variable that is itself declared void (such as my_variable above) is useless; it cannot be assigned a value, cannot be cast to another type, in fact, cannot be used in any way. Void pointers (type void *) are a dierent case, however. A void pointer is a generic pointer; any pointer can be cast to a void pointer and back without any loss of information. Any type of pointer can be assigned to (or compared with) a void pointer, without casting the pointer explicitly. Finally, a function call can be cast to void in order to explicitly discard a return value. For example, printf returns a value, but it is seldom used. Nevertheless, the two lines of code that follow are equivalent: printf ("Hullo!\n"); (void) printf ("Hullo!\n"); There is no good reason to prefer the second line to the rst, however, so using the more concise form is preferred.

19.3 volatile
The volatile type qualier was introduced by the ANSI Standard to permit the use of memory-mapped variables, that is, variables whose value changes autonomously based on input from hardware. One might declare a volatile variable volatile float temperature; whose value uctuated according to readings from a digital thermometer connected to the computer. There is another use for the volatile qualier that has to do with multiprocessing operating systems. Independent processes that share common memory might each change the value of a variable independently. The volatile keyword serves as a warning to the compiler that it should not optimize the code containing the variable (that is, compile it so that it will run in the most ecient way possible) by storing the value of the variable and referring to it repeatedly, but should reread the value of the variable every time. (Volatile variables are also agged by the compiler as not to be stored in read-only memory.)

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19.4 Constants
Constants in C usually refer to two things: either a type of variable whose value cannot change declared with the const qualier (in this case, variable is something of a misnomer), or a string or numeric value incorporated directly into C code, such as 1000. We will examine both kinds of constant in the next two sections.

19.4.1 const
Sometime a variable must be assigned a value once and once only; for example, it might be in read-only memory. The reserved word const is, like static and volatile, a data type qualier that can be applied to many dierent data types. It declares a variable to be a constant, whose value cannot be reassigned. A const must be assigned a value when it is declared. const double avogadro = 6.02e23; const int moon_landing = 1969; You can also declare constant arrays: const int my_array[] = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}; Any attempt to assign a new value to a const variable will result in a compile-time error such as the following: const.c: In function main: const.c:11: warning: assignment of read-only variable avogadro

19.4.2 Constant expressions

You can declare constant expressions explicitly as a particular type of value, such as a long integer, a oat, a character, or a hexadecimal value, with certain typographical conventions. For example, it is possible to declare a value explicitly as a long by placing the letter L after the numeric constant. For example: #define MY_LONG1 23L; #define MY_LONG2 236526598L; Similarly, you can declare a value to be a oat by appending the letter F to it. Of course, numeric constants containing a decimal point are automatically considered oats. The following constants are both oating-point numbers: #define MY_FLOAT1 23F; #define MY_FLOAT2 23.5001; You can declare a hexadecimal (base-16) number by prexing it with 0x; you can declare an octal (base-8) number by prexing it with 0. For example: int my_hex_integer = 0xFF; /* hex FF */ int my_octal_integer = 077; /* octal 77 */ You can use this sort of notation with strings and character constants too. ASCII character values range from 0 to 255. You can print any character in this range by prexing a

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hexadecimal value with \x or an octal value with \. Consider the following code example, which demonstrates how to print the letter A, using either a hexadecimal character code (\x41) or an octal one (\101). #include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main () { printf ("\\x41 hex = \x41\n"); printf ("\\101 octal = \101\n"); return 0; } The preceding code prints the following text: \x41 hex = A \101 octal = A Of course, you can assign a variable declared with the const qualier (the rst kind of constant we examined) a constant expression declared with one of the typographical expressions above. For example: const int my_hex_integer = 0xFF; const int my_octal_integer = 077; /* hex FF */ /* octal 77 */

19.5 struct and union

Structures and unions are data types that are important enough to merit a chapter of their own. See Chapter 20 [Data structures], page 205, for more information on structures and unions.

19.6 typedef

You can dene your own data types in C with the typedef command, which may be written inside functions or in global scope. This statement is used as follows: typedef existing type new type; You can then use the new type to declare variables, as in the following code example, which declares a new type called my_type and declares three variables to be of that type.

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#include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main (int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[]) { typedef int my_type; my_type var1, var2, var3; var1 = 10; var2 = 20; var3 = 30; return 0; } The new type called my_type behaves just like an integer. Why, then, would we use it instead of integer? Actually, you will seldom wish to rename an existing data type. The most important use for typedef is in renaming structures and unions, whose names can become long and tedious to declare otherwise. Well investigate structures and unions in the next chapter. (See Chapter 20 [Data structures], page 205.)

19.7 Questions 19
1. Enumerated names are given integer values by the compiler so that it can do multiplication and division with them. True or false? 2. Does void do anything which C cannot already do without this type? 3. What type qualier might a variable accessed directly by a timer be given? 4. Write a statement which declares a new type "real" to be like the usual type "double". 5. Variables declared with the qualier const can be of any type. True or false?

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20 Data structures
Grouping data. Tidying up programs. It would be hard for a program to manipulate data if it were scattered around with no particular structure. C therefore has several facilities to group data together in convenient packages, or data structures. One type of data structure in C is the struct (or structure) data type, which is a group of variables clustered together with a common name. A related data type is the union, which can contain any type of variable, but only one at a time. Finally, structures and unions can be linked together into complex data structures such as lists and trees. This chapter explores all of these kinds of data structure. It is important to distinguish the terms structure and data structure. Data structure is a generic term that refers to any pattern of data in a computer program. An array is a data structure, as is a string. A structure is a particular data type in C, the struct; all struct variables (structures) are data structures, but not all data structures are structures.

20.1 struct
A structure is a group of one or more variables under a single name. Unlike arrays, structures can contain a combination of dierent types of data; they can even contain arrays. A structure can be arbitrarily complex. Every type of structure that is dened is given a name, and the variables it contains (called members) are also given names. Finally, every variable declared to be of a particular structure type has its own name as well, just as any other variable does.

20.1.1 Structure declarations

The following statement is a type declaration, so it belongs with other declarations, either at the start of a program or the start of a code block. struct personal_data { char name[100]; char address[200]; int year_of_birth; int month_of_birth; int day_of_birth; }; The statement says: dene a type of variable that holds a string of 100 characters called name, a string of 200 characters called address, and three integers called year_ of_birth, month_of_birth, and day_of_birth. Any variable declared to be of type struct personal_data will contain these components, which are called members. Dierent structures, even dierent types of structure, can have members with the same name, but the values of members of dierent structures are independent of one another. You can also use the same name for a member as for an ordinary variable in your program, but the

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computer will recognize them as dierent entities, with dierent values. This is similar to the naming convention for humans, where two dierent men may share the name "John Smith", but are recognized as being dierent people. Once you have declared a type of structure, you can declare variables to be of that type. For example: struct personal_data person0001; The statement above declares a variable called person0001 to be of type struct personal_data. This is probably the most common method of declaring a structure variable, but there are two equivalent methods. For example, a structure variable can be declared immediately after the declaration of the structure type: struct personal_data { char name[100]; char address[200]; int year_of_birth; int month_of_birth; int day_of_birth; } person0001;

20.1.1.1 Structure declarations using typedef

Alternatively, the typedef command can be used to cut down on typing out code in the long term. The type denition is made once at the start of the program and subsequent variable declarations are made by using the new name, without the word struct: typedef struct { char name[100]; char address[200]; int year_of_birth; int month_of_birth; int day_of_birth; } personal_data; personal_data person001; personal_data person002; personal_data person003; Note that this use of the typedef command parallels the usage we have already seen: typedef existing type new type In the example above of using typedef to declare a new type of structure, the metasyntactic variable new type corresponds to the identier personal_data, and the metasyntactic variable existing type corresponds to the following code:

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struct { char name[100]; char address[200]; int year_of_birth; int month_of_birth; int day_of_birth; } Structure type and variable declarations can be either local or global, depending on their placement in the code, just as any other declaration can be.

20.1.2 Using structures

Structures are extremely powerful data types. Not only can you pass a whole structure as a parameter to a function, or return one as a value from a function. You can even assign one structure to another. You can get and set the values of the members of a structure with the . dot character. This is called the member operator. The general form of a member reference is: structure name.member name In the following example, the year 1852 is assigned to the year_of_birth member of the structure variable person1, of type struct personal_data. Similarly, month 5 is assigned to the month_of_birth member, and day 4 is assigned to the day_of_birth member. struct personal_data person1; person1.year_of_birth = 1852; person1.month_of_birth = 5; person1.day_of_birth = 4; Besides the dot operator, C also provides a special -> member operator for use in conjunction with pointers, because pointers and structures are used together so often. (See Section 20.1.5 [Pointers to structures], page 209.) Structures are easy to use For example, you can assign one structure to another structure of the same type (unlike strings, for example, which must use the string library routine strcpy). Here is an example of assigning one structure to another: struct personal_data person1, person2; person2 = person1; The members of the person2 variable now contain all the data of the members of the person1 variable. Structures are passed as parameters in the usual way: my_structure_fn (person2); You would declare such a function thus: void my_structure_fn (struct personal_data some_struct) { }

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Note that in order to declare this function, the struct personal_data type must be declared globally. Finally, a function that returns a structure variable would be declared thusly: struct personal_data structure_returning_fn () { struct personal_data random_person; return random_person; } Of course, random_person is a good name for the variable returned by this bare-bones function, because without unless one writes code to initialize it, it can only be lled with garbage values.

20.1.3 Arrays of structures

Just as arrays of basic types such as integers and oats are allowed in C, so are arrays of structures. An array of structures is declared in the usual way: struct personal_data my_struct_array[100]; The members of the structures in the array are then accessed by statements such as the following: The value of a member of a structure in an array can be assigned to another variable, or the value of a variable can be assigned to a member. For example, the following code assigns the number 1965 to the year_of_birth member of the fourth element of my_struct_array: my_struct_array[3].year_of_birth = 1965; (Like all other arrays in C, struct arrays start their numbering at zero.) The following code assigns the value of the year_of_birth member of the fourth element of my_struct_array to the variable yob: yob = my_struct_array[3].year_of_birth; Finally, the following example assigns the values of all the members of the second element of my_struct_array, namely my_struct_array[1], to the third element, so my_struct_ array[2] takes the overall value of my_struct_array[1]. my_struct_array[2] = my_struct_array[1];

20.1.4 Nested structures

Structures can contain other structures as members; in other words, structures can nest. Consider the following two structure types:

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struct first_structure_type { int integer_member; float float_member; }; struct second_structure_type { double double_member; struct first_structure_type struct_member; }; The rst structure type is incorporated as a member of the second structure type. You can initialize a variable of the second type as follows: struct second_structure_type demo; demo.double_member = 12345.6789; demo.struct_member.integer_member = 5; demo.struct_member.float_member = 1023.17; The member operator . is used to access members of structures that are themselves members of a larger structure. No parentheses are needed to force a special order of evaluation; a member operator expression is simply evaluated from left to right. In principle, structures can be nested indenitely. Statements such as the following are syntactically acceptable, but bad style. (See Chapter 22 [Style], page 227.) my_structure.member1.member2.member3.member4 = 5; What happens if a structure contains an instance of its own type, however? For example: struct regression { int int_member; struct regression self_member; }; In order to compile a statement of this type, your computer would theoretically need an innite amount of memory. In practice, however, you will simply receive an error message along the following lines: struct5.c: In function main: struct5.c:8: field self_member has incomplete type The compiler is telling you that self_member has been declared before its data type, regression has been fully declared naturally, since youre declaring self_member in the middle of declaring its own data type!

20.1.5 Pointers to structures

Although a structure cannot contain an instance of its own type, it can can contain a pointer to another structure of its own type, or even to itself. This is because a pointer to a structure is not itself a structure, but merely a variable that holds the address of a structure. Pointers to structures are quite invaluable, in fact, for building data structures such as linked lists and trees. (See Section 20.4 [Complex data structures], page 215.)

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A pointer to a structure type variable is declared by a statement such as the following: struct personal_data *my_struct_ptr; The variable my_struct_ptr is a pointer to a variable of type struct personal_data. This pointer can be assigned to any other pointer of the same type, and can be used to access the members of its structure. According to the rules we have outlined so far, this would have to be done like so: struct personal_data person1; my_struct_ptr = &person1; (*my_struct_ptr).day_of_birth = 23; This code example says, in eect, Let the member day_of_birth of the structure pointed to by my_struct_ptr take the value 23. Notice the use of parentheses to avoid confusion about the precedence of the * and . operators. There is a better way to write the above code, however, using a new operator: ->. This is an arrow made out of a minus sign and a greater than symbol, and it is used as follows: my_struct_ptr->day_of_birth = 23; The -> enables you to access the members of a structure directly via its pointer. This statement means the same as the last line of the previous code example, but is considerably clearer. The -> operator will come in very handy when manipulating complex data structures. (See Section 20.4 [Complex data structures], page 215.)

20.1.6 Initializing structures

In the chapter on arrays, we explored how to initialize an array with values at compile time. (See Section 14.5 [Initializing arrays], page 99.) It is also possible to initialize structures at compile time, as shown below. (This code example also shows how to dynamically allocate structures with malloc and initialize them with the -> operator. See Section 20.2 [Memory allocation], page 212, for more information on this technique.) #include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main() { struct personal_data { char name[100]; char address[200]; int year_of_birth; int month_of_birth; int day_of_birth; };

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struct personal_data person1 = { "Liddell, Alice", "Wonderland", 1852, 5, 4 }; struct personal_data person2 = { "Hale-Evans, Ron", "Seattle, Washington", 1965, 6, 27 }; struct personal_data* person_ptr1; struct personal_data* person_ptr2; person_ptr1 = (struct personal_data*) malloc (sizeof (struct personal_data)); strcpy (person_ptr1->name, "Adams, Douglas"); strcpy (person_ptr1->address, "The Galaxy"); person_ptr1->year_of_birth = 1952; person_ptr1->month_of_birth = 3; /* Dont know his exact birthday */ person_ptr2 = (struct personal_data*) malloc (sizeof (struct personal_data)); strcpy (person_ptr2->name, "Egan, Greg"); strcpy (person_ptr2->address, "Permutation City"); person_ptr2->year_of_birth = 1961; /* Dont know his birthday */ puts puts puts puts puts ("Data contained:"); (person1.name); (person2.name); (person_ptr1->name); (person_ptr2->name);

return 0; } Any trailing items not initialized by data you specify are set to zero.

20.2 Memory allocation

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Most variables in C have a xed size. For example, a string declared to be 200 bytes long will always be 200 bytes long throughout the program. Sometimes, however, you will need variables whose size can vary. You might want a string whose size can vary between 0 and 100 kilobytes, for instance. We have already seen occasions where this sort of string is needed with the getline function. (See Section 16.2.6.1 [getline], page 132.) This is where dynamic data, or data whose size can vary, comes in. Dynamic data is created via the process of memory allocation, that is, assigning a block of memory to a variable. Blocks of memory are usually assigned with the malloc function (the function name is from the phrase memory allocation), and can be resized with the realloc (memory reallocation) function, and even merged back into the pool of available memory with the free function. The malloc function takes one argument, the number of bytes to allocate. It returns a void pointer, which provides the address of the beginning of a block of memory that the program can use. This void pointer can be assigned to any other type of pointer. The only way to make use of the block of memory that has been allocated is through its pointer; in that sense, the block is not a real variable, that is to say, you cannot assign a value to the memory block directly. Instead, the address returned by malloc enables you to use the block indirectly; in this way, the block can contain any kind of value a real variable can. Having to use blocks indirectly through pointers is a small price to pay for the exibility of dynamic data. The following code example allocates a ten-byte string: char *my_string; my_string = (char *) malloc(10+1); Notice that the void pointer returned by malloc is cast to a character pointer (type char *) before it is assigned to my_string. (See Section 5.4 [The cast operator], page 22.) Also notice that we have actually allocated 11 bytes of space; this is because the 11th byte must contain a null character that terminates the string but does not count toward its actual length. Careful! The newly-allocated block will be lled with garbage. To reallocate the memory, use the realloc function. This function takes two parameters. The rst is the pointer to the memory block to be reallocated, and the second is a number of type size_t that species the new size for the block. It returns a void pointer to the newly reallocated block. Here is how to reallocate the block allocated for my_string above, to a new size of 1000 bytes: my_string = (char *) realloc (my_string, 1001); The new block will contain all the data in the old block, followed by enough space to pad out the block to the new length. The new space will be lled with garbage. Finally, to free up the memory allocated to a block and return it to the common pool of memory available to your program, use the free function, which takes only one argument, the pointer to the block you wish to free. It does not return a value. free (my_string); It is also possible to allocate the memory for a structure when it is needed and use the -> operator to access the members of the structure, since we must access the structure via a pointer. (See the code sample following the next paragraph for an example of how to

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do this.) If you are creating complex data structures that require hundreds or thousands of structure variables (or more), the ability to create and destroy them dynamically can mean quite a savings in memory. Its easy enough to allocate a block of memory when you know you want 1000 bytes for a string, but how do you know how much memory to allocate for a structure? For this task, C provides the sizeof function, which calculates the size of an object. For example, sizeof (int) returns the numbers of bytes occupied by an integer variable. Similarly, sizeof (struct personal_data) returns the number of bytes occupied by our personal_data structure. To allocate a pointer to one of these structures, then set the year_of_birth member to 1852, you would write something like the following: struct personal_data* my_struct_ptr; my_struct_ptr = (struct personal_data*) malloc (sizeof (struct personal_data)); my_struct_ptr->year_of_birth = 1852;

20.3 union
A union is like a structure in which all of the members are stored at the same address. Only one member can be in a union at one time. The union data type was invented to prevent the computer from breaking its memory up into many ineciently sized chunks, a condition that is called memory fragmentation. The union data type prevents fragmentation by creating a standard size for certain data. When the computer allocates memory for a program, it usually does so in one large block of bytes. Every variable allocated when the program runs occupies a segment of that block. When a variable is freed, it leaves a hole in the block allocated for the program. If this hole is of an unusual size, the computer may have diculty allocating another variable to ll the hole, thus leading to inecient memory usage. Since unions have a standard data size, however, any hole left in memory by freeing a union can be lled by another instance of the same type of union. A union works because the space allocated for it is the space taken by its largest member; thus, the small-scale memory ineciency of allocating space for the worst case leads to memory eciency on a larger scale.

20.3.1 Declaration of unions

A union is declared in the same way as a structure. It has a list of members, as in the example below: union int_or_float { int int_member; float float_member; }; Declaring union variables is similar to declaring structure variables: union int_or_float my_union1, my_union2;

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Just like structures, the members of unions can be accessed with the . and -> operators. However, unlike structures, the variables my_union1 and my_union2 above can be treated as either integers or oating-point variables at dierent times during the program. For example, if you write my_union1.int_member = 5;, then the program sees my_union1 as being an integer. (This is only a manner of speaking. However, my_union1 by itself does not have a value; only its members have values.) On the other hand, if you then type my_union1.float_member = 7.7;, the my_union variable loses its integer value. It is crucial to remember that a union variable can only have one type at the same time.

20.3.2 Using unions

One way to tell what type of member is currently stored in the union is to maintain a ag variable for each union. This can be done easily with enumerated data. For example, for the int_or_float type, we might want an associated enumerated type like this: enum which_member { INT, FLOAT }; Notice that we used all-uppercase letters for the enumerated values. We would have received a syntax error if we had actually used the C keywords int and float. Associated union and enumerated variables can now be declared in pairs: union int_or_float my_union1; enum which_member my_union_status1; Handling union members is now straightforward. For example: switch (my_union_status1) { case INT: my_union1.int_member += 5; break; case FLOAT: my_union1.float_member += 23.222333; break; } These variables could even be grouped into a structure for ease of use: struct multitype { union int_or_float number; enum which_member status; }; struct multitype my_multi; You would then make assignments to the members of this structure in pairs: my_multi.number.int_member = 5; my_multi.status = INT;

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20.4 Complex data structures

When building data structures, it is best to model the situation in question clearly and eciently. Dierent types of data structure are good for dierent things. For example, arrays are good for storing tabular information. A chessboard looks like a two-dimensional array, so such an array is a good data structure to model a chess game. In this section we will examine more complex data structures that are useful for modeling more complex situations.

20.4.1 Data structure diagrams

Sometimes you will want to draw a picture that shows how to solve a problem by displaying how all its parts are connected. Such a picture is called a structure diagram. Consider a hypothetical application that stores a map of the local countryside. This program must store information about individual towns and be able to give directions to the user about how to get from one town to another. A person driving a car from town to town might use a map, but the application programmer might use a structure diagram. Here is a structure diagram for the imaginary town of New Haven, and its neighboring towns North Haven, East Haven, South Haven, and West Haven: North Haven ^ | v West Haven <-> New Haven <-> East Haven ^ | v South Haven Once you have a structure diagram that represents your information, you can create a data structure that translates the structure diagram into the computers memory. In this case, we can create a town structure that contains pointers to the towns that lie at the end of roads in the various compass directions. The town structure might look something like this: struct town { struct town *north; struct town *south; struct town *east; struct town *west; char name[50]; };

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If the user of this hypothetical application wishes to know what is to the north of a particular town, the program only has to check that towns north pointer.

20.4.2 Dynamic data structures, Pointers and Dynamic Memory

For programs dealing with large sets of data, it would be a nuisance to have to name every structure variable containing every piece of data in the code for one thing, it would be inconvenient to enter new data at run time because you would have to know the name of the variable in which to store the data when you wrote the program. For another thing, variables with names are permanent they cannot be freed and their memory reallocated, so you might have to allocate an impractically large block of memory for your program at compile time, even though you might need to store much of the data you entered at run time temporarily. Fortunately, complex data structures are built out of dynamically allocated memory, which does not have these limitations. All your program needs to do is keep track of a pointer to a dynamically allocated block, and it will always be able to nd the block. A complex data structure is usually built out of the following components: nodes links root Dynamically-allocated blocks of data, usually structures. Pointers from nodes to their related nodes. The node where a data structure starts, also known as the root node. The address of the root of a data structure must be stored explicitly in a C variable, or else you will lose track of it.

There are some advantages to the use of dynamic storage for data structures: As mentioned above, since memory is allocated as needed, we dont need to declare how much we shall use in advance. Complex data structures can be made up of lots of lesser data structures in a modular way, making them easier to program. Using pointers to connect structures means that they can be re-connected in dierent ways as the need arises. (Data structures can be sorted, for example.)

20.4.3 Lists and trees

Two data structures that use nodes and links are very common: the linked list and the binary tree

20.4.3.1 Linked lists.

A linked list is a linear sequence of structures joined together by pointers. Each nodes pointer links to the next node in the sequence. Linked lists have two main advantages over one dimensional arrays: they can be sorted easily simply by redirecting pointers, and they can be made any length at all dynamically. Here is an example of a structure type from a linked list:

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struct list_node { double value; struct list_node *next; }; Here the value member holds the actual content of the node, in this case a double-precision oating-point number, and the next member points to the next node in the list. You will often encounter another basic kind of linked list, called a doubly-linked list. Each node in a doubly-linked list contains not only a pointer to the next node, but also to the previous node. This kind of list makes it easier to determine what the node preceding a node is, as well as the node succeeding it.

20.4.3.2 Binary trees

A binary tree is a data structure in which each node contains links to two successor nodes, so that the whole structure is shaped like a branching tree. A typical use for a binary tree might be storing genealogical information; since (at this point in human evolution) every individual has two parents, each node can represent a person and the two linked nodes can represent that persons mother and father. Lets extend our personal_data structure to incorporate this kind of information: struct personal_data { char name[100]; char address[200]; int year_of_birth; int month_of_birth; int day_of_birth; struct personal_data *mother; struct personal_data *father; };

20.4.4 Setting up a data structure

Plan your data structures well, before you write any program code. Changes in program code may not aect data structures, but changes to data structures will likely imply drastic changes to program code.

20.4.4.1 Designing your data structure

The steps you should take in designing a data structure follow a basic pattern: 1. Group together all the kinds of information that must be stored and dene a structure type with a member for each kind of information.

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2. Add structure pointers to the structure type to reect the way in which each bundle of information is connected to the others. 3. Design the algorithms to handle the memory allocation, node linking, and data storage.

20.4.4.2 Initializing your data structure

Once you understand your data structure, you can set about initializing it in the following way: 1. Declare your structure type. For example: struct town { struct town *north; struct town *south; struct town *east; struct town *west; char name[50]; }; 2. Declare two pointers to this type: struct town *root, *current; The root pointer is used to point to the root node of the data structure, and the current pointer points to the node with which we are currently working. 3. Allocate memory for the root node: root = (struct town *) malloc (sizeof (struct town)); Be sure to check for errors. The variable root will be a null pointer if no memory could be allocated for the node. 4. Initialize the members of the root node: root->north = NULL; root->south = NULL; root->east = NULL; root->west = NULL; strcpy (root->name, "New Haven"); Note that NULL pointers tell the program when it has come to the edge of the data structure, that is, when it has found a link that doesnt lead anywhere. At the moment, the links of the root node do not point anywhere. This will change as we add more nodes to the data structure. 5. Create a new, non-root node: current = (struct town *) malloc (sizeof (struct town)); 6. Initialize the current node: current->north = NULL; current->south = root; current->east = NULL; current->west = NULL; strcpy (current->name, "North Haven");

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7. Link neighboring nodes to the current node, as appropriate: root->north = current; 8. Repeat steps 5 through 7, as necessary. See Section 21.3 [Controlled recursion with data structures], page 224, for a practical example of building a simple linked list programmatically.

20.5 Further data structure examples

See Chapter 24 [Example programs], page 241, to see a complete application program that uses a complex data structure with nodes and links to stores its data later in the book.

20.6 Questions 20
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. What is the dierence between a structure and a union? What is a member? If foo is a structure variable, how would you nd out the value of its member bar? If foo is a pointer to a structure variable, how would you nd out the value of its member bar? How are data usually linked to make a complex data structure? Every structure variable in a complex data structure must have its own variable name. True or false? How are the members of structures accessed in a data structure? Write a small program to make linked list that contains three nodes long and set all their values to be zero. Can you automate this program with a loop? Can you make it work for any number of nodes?

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21 Recursion
The program that swallowed its tail. This chapter is about functions that call themselves. Consider the program below: #include <stdio.h> void black_hole() { black_hole(); } /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main () { black_hole(); return 0; } The main function calls the black_hole function, which calls itself, which calls itself, which calls. . . Once the control ow enters black_hole, it will never exit. This kind of function is called a recursive function, and a functions act of calling itself is called recursion.

21.1 The stack

What happens when we run the last example program? The black_hole function calls itself indenitely. Each function call uses up a small portion of the computers memory called the stack. Eventually all of this memory is used up, and a kind of error called a stack overow occurs. The program then crashes with a Segmentation fault error. It is sometimes helpful to think of a function as a robot that does a job. A function denition in eect provides the blueprints for a robot. When the function is executed, it is as though a robot is built on an assembly line in a robot factory. A recursive function is like a robot that builds a copy of itself on the same assembly line. The second robot is identical to the rst in every way, except that it is an assistant to the rst robot, and has been passed dierent arguments. This second robot may in turn build a copy of itself as well, and so on. It is crucial that the process of robots building robots stop at some point; otherwise, the robot factory will run out of raw materials (that is, computer memory), and the assembly line will grind to a halt.

21.1.1 The stack in detail

Lets examine this process in detail. When one function calls another function in a C program, control passes from the rst function to the second function. When the second function ends, control passes back to the statement in the rst function that immediately follows the function call. But how does the computer know where in its memory this statement resides?

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The answer is simple. The computer keeps a list of the addresses in memory of the places to which it must return, no matter how many function calls are made. This list is the stack. The stack gets its name from the fact that it is a LIFO, or last in, rst out structure, meaning that the last item to be pushed onto the stack is the rst item to be popped o. It works, in other words, like the stack of dinner plates you keep in your kitchen cabinet. As you wash plates, you pile them one by one on top of the stack, and when you want a plate, you take one from the top of the stack. The stack of plates in your cabinet is therefore also a last in, rst out structure, like the computers stack. When one C function calls a second function, the computer leaves itself an address at the top of the stack of where it should return when it has nished executing the second function. If the second function calls a third function, the computer will push another address onto the stack. When the third function has nished executing, the computer pops the top address o the stack, which tells it where in the second function it should return. When the second function has nished, the computer again pops the top address o the stack which tells it where in the rst function it should return. Perhaps the rst function then calls another function, and the whole process starts again. What happens when black_hole calls itself? The computer makes a note of the address it must return to and pushes that address onto the top of the stack. It begins executing black_hole again, and encounters another call to black_hole. The computer pushes another address onto the top of the stack, and begins executing black_hole again. Since the program has no chance of popping addresses o the stack, as the process continues, the stack gets lled up with addresses. Eventually, the stack lls up and the program crashes.

21.2 Controlled recursion

If that were all there is to recursion, no one would ever use it. However, recursion can be limited so it does not go out of control. Controlled recursion can be a powerful programming technique. When we discussed data structures, we remarked that programs and data structures should aim to model the situation they deal with closely. Some structures, both in real life and in computer memory, are made up of many levels of detail, and the details are roughly the same at every level. For example, a genealogical tree starts with an individual with two parents, each of whom has two parents, each of whom. . . These sorts of structure are called self-similar. Since recursion employs functions that contain calls to themselves, in eect creating multiple self-similar levels of detail, controlled recursion is useful for dealing with self-similar problems. Recursive functions can be controlled by making sure that there is a safe way to exit them at some point in the chain of function calls. The number of times recursion takes place is limited by making a decision about whether the function calls itself or not. Simply put, somewhere along the chain of function calls, the function makes the decision not to call itself again, in a process nicknamed bottoming out. At that point, the program begins popping addresses o the stack and returning to the previous functions. Eventually, the very rst function in the chain terminates, and the program ends successfully.

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A standard example of controlled recursion is the factorial function. This is a mathematical function which is important in statistics. The factorial function is dened to be the product (multiplication) of all integers from 1 to the parameter of the function. (The factorial of 0 is 1.) Here are some examples of the factorial function. These are not executable C code examples, but pseudocode: factorial(3) == 1 * 2 * 3 == 6 factorial(4) == 1 * 2 * 3 * 4 == 24 factorial(3) == 1 * 2 * 3 * 4 * 5 == 120 Formally, the factorial function is dened by two equations. (Again, these are in pseudocode). factorial(n) = n * factorial(n-1) factorial(0) = 1 The rst of these statements is recursive, because it denes the value of factorial(n) in terms of factorial(n-1). The second statement allows the function to bottom out. Here is a short code example that incorporates a factorial function. #include <stdio.h> int factorial (int n) { if (n == 0) return 1; else return (n * factorial (n-1)); } /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main () { printf ("%d\n", factorial(3)); return 0; } Lets follow the control ow in this program to see how controlled recursion can work. The main function prints the value of factorial(3). First, the factorial function is called with the parameter 3. The function tests whether its parameter n is zero. It is not, so it takes the else branch if the if statement, which instructs it to return the value of factorial(3-1). It therefore calls itself recursively with a parameter of 2. The new call checks whether its parameter is zero. It isnt (its 2), so it takes the else branch again, and tries to calculate 2 * factorial (1). In order to do so, it calls itself recursively with a value of 2-1, or 1. The new call checks whether its parameter is zero. It is actually 1, so it takes the else branch again and attempts to calculate 1 * factorial (0). In order to do so, it calls itself again with the parameter 0. Again, the function checks whether its parameter is zero. This time it is, so the function bottoms out. It takes the rst branch of the if statement and returns a value of 1. Now the previous function call can also return a value, and so on, until the very rst call to factorial terminates, and the function returns a value of 6.

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To sum up, the expression factorial(3) goes through the following steps before nally being evaluated: factorial (3) == == == == == 3 3 3 3 6 * * * * factorial(2) (2 * factorial(1)) (2 * (1 * factorial(0))) (2 * (1 * 1)))

Note: Make sure that the test for whether to bottom out your recursive function does not depend on a global variable. Suppose you have a global variable called countdown, which your recursive function decrements by 1 every time it is called. When countdown equals zero, your recursive function bottoms out. However, since other functions than the recursive function have access to global variables, it is possible that another function might independently change countdown in such a way that your recursive function would never bottom out perhaps by continually incrementing it, or perhaps even by setting it to a negative number.

21.3 Controlled recursion with data structures

Self-similar data structures are sometimes called recursive data structures. The simplest recursive data structure is the linked list. At every node in a linked list, there is data of a certain type and a link to the next node. The next simplest recursive data structure is the binary tree, which splits into two branches at every node. Recursive functions be useful for manipulating such recursive data structures. The following code example makes use of recursion to print the value contained in the last node in a linked list. #include <stdio.h> struct list_node { int data; struct list_node *next; }; struct list_node *last_node (struct list_node *node) { if (node->next == NULL) return node; else return last_node (node->next); }

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/* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main () { struct list_node *root; struct list_node *current; struct list_node *old; struct list_node *last; /* Initialize list. */ root = (struct list_node *) malloc (sizeof (struct list_node)); root->data = 1; old = root; current = (struct list_node *) malloc (sizeof (struct list_node)); current->data = 2; old->next = current; old = current; current = (struct list_node *) malloc (sizeof (struct list_node)); current->data = 3; old->next = current; current->next = NULL; /* Print data in last node. */ last = last_node (root); printf ("Data in last node is %d.\n", last->data); return 0; } This example program prints out the following line: Data in last node is 3. The last_node function, when passed a pointer to a node (such as the root), follows the linked list to its end from that point, and returns a pointer to that node. It does so through recursion. When it is passed a pointer to a node, it checks whether that nodes next link is a null pointer. If the pointer is null, last_node has found the last node, and bottoms out, returning a pointer to the current node; otherwise, it calls itself with a pointer to the next node as a parameter.

21.4 Recursion summary

Recursion can be a powerful programming technique, especially when dealing with mathematical functions such as factorialisation that lend themselves naturally to recursion, or with self-similar data structures. There is a major disadvantage to recursion, however, and that is the amount of memory required to make it work. Do not forget that the program stack grows each time a function call is made. If a function calls itself too many times, your program will run out of memory and crash. Recursive programming can also be dicult; runaway recursion is a common error. Therefore, be judicious in your use of recursion.

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21.5 Questions 21
1. What is a recursive function? 2. What is a program stack, and what is it for? 3. State the major disadvantage of recursion.

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22 Style
C has no rules about when to start new lines, where to place whitespace, and so on. Users are free to choose a style which best suits them, but unless a strict style is adopted, sloppy programs tend to result. In older compilers, memory restrictions sometimes necessitated bizarre, cryptic styles in the interest of eciency. However, contemporary compilers such as GCC have no such restrictions, and have optimizers that can produce faster code than most programmers could write themselves by hand, so there are no excuses not to write programs as clearly as possible. No simple set of rules will ever provide a complete methodology for writing good programs. In the end, experience and good judgment are the factors which determine whether you will write good programs. Nevertheless, a few guidelines to good style can be stated. Many of the guidelines in this chapter are the distilled wisdom of countless C programmers over the decades that C has existed, and some come directly from the GNU Coding Standards. That document contains more good advice than can be crammed into this short chapter, so if you plan to write programs for the Free Software Foundation, you are urged to consult section Table of Contents in GNU Coding Standards.

22.1 Formatting code

Place the open curly bracket that starts the body of a C function in the rst column of your source le, and avoid placing any other open brackets or open parentheses in that column. This will help many code-processing utilities nd the beginnings of your functions. Similarly, you should also place the name of your functions within your function denitions in the rst column. Thus, your functions should resemble the following example: static char * concat (char *s1, char *s2) { ... } When you split an expression into multiple lines, split it before an operator, not after one. Here is the right way: if (foo_this_is_long && bar > win (x, y, z) && remaining_condition) Dont declare multiple variables in one declaration that spans lines. Start a new declaration on each line instead. For example, instead of this: int foo, bar; write either this: int foo, bar; or this:

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int foo; int bar;

22.2 Comments and style

Comments are crucial for other programmers trying to understand your code. Every program should start with a comment saying briey what it is for. Example: fmt - filter for simple filling of text. Similarly, you should put a comment on each function saying what the function does, what sort of arguments it takes, what the possible values of arguments mean, and what they are used for. Please write all comments in a GNU program in English, because English is the one language that nearly all programmers in all countries can read.

22.3 Variable and function names

The names of variables and functions in a program serve as comments of a sort, so try to give your variables descriptive names (for example, num_of_books, cost_per_entry, or distance_from_center). Names should be in English, like other comments. Use underscores rather than internal capitalization in names, so that Emacs word commands can be useful within them thus distance_from_center rather than distanceFromCenter or DistanceFromCenter. In fact, upper-case letters should be reserved for macros and enum constants. Macros should be completely in upper case, for example STANDARD_SIZE. It used to be common practice to use the same local variables (with names like temp) over and over for dierent purposes within one function. Instead, it is better to declare a separate local variable for each distinct purpose, and give it a meaningful name. This not only makes programs easier to understand, it also facilitates optimization by good compilers.

22.4 Declarations and initialization

You should explicitly declare the types of all objects. For example, explicitly declare all arguments to functions, and declare all function that return integers to return type int, even though the ANSI Standard permits omitting the int. If there are only a few declarations, then initializing variables where you declare them can be tidy, but if there are many variables to declare, then it is usually better to declare and initialize separately, for the sake of clarity. In a long function, it is often good to initialize the variable near where you are using it, so that someone reading the code does not have to hunt around in the function to discover its initial value. (See Section 5.3 [Initialization], page 22.)

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22.5 Global variables and style

Global variables have caused almost as much controversy as the goto statement. Some programmers say you should never use them. Other programmers use them on a regular basis. In fact, while global variables should not be overused, they can simplify your code considerably. The following guidelines may help you decide where to use globals. Always think of using local variables rst. Global variables can puncture the encapsulization of your functions, that is, the logical isolation of your functions from the rest of your code. It is dicult to see what variables are being passed to a function unless they are all passed as parameters, so it is easier to debug a program when encapsulization is maintained. Local variables may be impractical, however, if they mean passing the same dozen parameters to multiple functions; in such cases, global variables will often streamline your code. Data structures that are important to the whole program should be dened globally. In real programs such as GNU Emacs, there are far more global variables than there are local variables visible in any one function. Finally, dont use local variables or parameters that have the same names as global identiers. This can make debugging very dicult.

22.6 Hidden operators and style

Hiding operators away inside other statements can certainly make programs look elegant and compact, but it can make programs harder to understand. Never forget that besides being a set of instructions to the computer, programming is a form of communication to other programmers. Be kind to the reader of your program. It could be you in months or years to come. Statements such as: if ((my_int = (int)my_char++) <= --my_int2) { ... } are not good style, and are no more ecient than the more longwinded: my_int = (int) my_char; my_char++; my_int2--; if (my_int <= my_int2) { ... }

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22.7 Final words on style

It is easy to support pre-ANSI-Standard compilers in most programs, so if you know how to do that and a program you are maintaining has such support, you should try to keep it working. Whatever style you use, use it consistently. A mixture of styles within a single program tends to look ugly and be hard to read and maintain. If you are contributing changes to an existing program, it is best to follow the style of that program.

22.8 Questions 22
1. Where should the name of a program and the opening bracket of a function denition begin? 2. In what human language should comments be written for the GNU Project? Why? 3. Which is better as the name of a variable: plotArea, PlotArea, or plot_area? Why? 4. Why is it important to initialize a variable near where it is used in a long function? 5. Give an example of a case where using local variables is impractical.

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23 Debugging
True articial intelligence has not yet been achieved. C compilers are not intelligent, but unconscious: mechanical in the derogatory sense of the word. Therefore, debugging your programs can be a dicult process. A single typographical error can cause a compiler to completely misunderstand your code and generate a misleading error message. Sometimes a long string of compiler error messages are generated because of a single error in your code. To minimize the time you spend debugging, it is useful to become familiar with the most common compiler messages and their probable causes. The rst section in this chapter lists some of these common compile-time errors and what to do about them. The next two sections discuss run-time errors in general, and mathematical errors in particular. The nal section introduces GDB, the GNU Debugger, and explains some simple steps you can take to debug your programs with it.

23.1 Compile-time errors

In this section, we will examine a variety of compile-time errors and what you can do about them. The aim is not to be a comprehensive guide to everything that can go wrong with your program and all the corresponding error messages, but rather to give you a taste of the kinds of errors you are likely to make, and to build your condence by showing that even fairly scary-looking error messages often have a simple cause.

23.1.1 parse error at. . . , parse error before. . .

This is a general-purpose syntax error. It is frequently caused by a missing semicolon. For example, the following code: #include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main() { printf ("Hello, world!\n") return 0; } generates the following error: semicolon.c: In function main: semicolon.c:6: parse error before return Adding a semicolon (;) at the end of the line printf ("Hello, world!") will get rid of this error. Notice that the error refers to line 6, but the error is actually on the previous line. This is quite common. Since C compilers are lenient about where you place whitespace, the compiler treats line 5 and line 6 as a single line that reads as follows:

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printf ("Hello, world!\n") return 0; Of course this code makes no sense, and that is why the compiler complains. Often a missing curly bracket will cause one of these errors. For example, the following code: #include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main() { if (1==1) { printf ("Hello, world!\n");

return 0; } generates the following error: brackets.c: In function main: brackets.c:11: parse error at end of input Because there is no closing curly bracket for the if statement, the compiler thinks the curly bracket that terminates the main function actually terminates the if statement. When it does not nd a curly bracket on line 11 of the program to terminate the main function, it complains. One way to avoid this problem is to type both members of a matching pair of brackets before you ll them in.

23.1.2 undened reference to. . .

This error is often generated because you have typed the name of a function or variable incorrectly. For example, the following code: #include <stdio.h> void print_hello() { printf ("Hello!\n"); } /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main() { Print_hello(); return 0; } generates the following rather forbidding error: /tmp/cc9KXhmV.o: In function main: /tmp/cc9KXhmV.o(.text+0x1f): undefined reference to Print_hello collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

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The answer, however, is very simple. C is case-sensitive. The main function calls the function Print_hello (with a capital P), but the correct name of the function is print_ hello (with a lower-case p). The linker could not nd a function with the name Print_ hello.

23.1.3 unterminated string or character constant

This error is often generated by code like the following: #include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main() { printf("hello!\n); printf("Hello again!\n"); return 0; } The actual error message received was: missquotes.c:6: unterminated string or character constant missquotes.c:5: possible real start of unterminated constant The compiler never found a close quote (") for the string Hello!\n. It read all the text up from the quote in the line printf("Hello!\n); to the rst quote in the line printf("Hello again!\n"); as a single string. Notice that GCC helpfully suggests that it is line 5 that actually contains the unterminated string. GCC is pretty smart as C compilers go.

23.2 . . . undeclared (rst use in this function)

This is similar to the undefined reference to... error, but instead of referring to an undened function, you are referring to an undened variable. Sometimes this is a scope problem. You might get this error if you tried to refer to another functions local variable. For example: #include <stdio.h> void set_value() { int my_int = 5; } /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main() { my_int = 23; return 0; }

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The variable my_int is local to the function set_value, so referring to it from within main results in the following error: undec.c: In undec.c:10: undec.c:10: undec.c:10: function main: my_int undeclared (first use in this function) (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once for each function it appears in.)

23.2.1 dierent type arg

You might get this warning if you mismatch a parameter to printf and a conversion specier. For example, the following code: #include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main() { int my_int = 5; printf ("%f", my_int); return 0; } produces the folliwing warning: wrongtype2.c: In function main: wrongtype2.c:6: warning: double format, different type arg (arg 2) The %f conversion specier requires a oating-point argument, while my_int is an integer, so GCC complains. Note: GCC is quite lenient about type mismatches and will usually coerce one type to another dynamically without complaining, for example when assigning a oating-point number to an integer. This extends to mismatched parameters and conversion speciers although you may receive odd results from printf and so on, the causes of which may not be obvious. Therefore, in order to generate this warning, the -Wall option of GCC was used. This option causes GCC to be especially sensitive to errors, and to complain about problems it usually ignores. You will often nd the -Wall option to be useful in nding tricky problems. Here is the actual command line used to compile this program: gcc -Wall -o wrong wrongtype2.c

23.2.2 too few parameters. . . , too many parameters. . .

Consider the following program:

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#include <stdio.h> void tweedledee (int a, int b, int c) { } void tweedledum (int a, int b) { } /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main() { tweedledee (1, 2); tweedledum (1, 2, 3); return 0; } The tweedledee function takes three parameters, but main passes it two, whereas the tweedledum function takes two parameters, but main passes it three. The result is a pair of straightforward error messages: params.c: In function main: params.c:14: too few arguments to function tweedledee params.c:15: too many arguments to function tweedledum This is one reason for the existence of function prototypes. Before the ANSI Standard, compilers did not complain about this kind of error. If you were working with a library of functions with which you were not familiar, and you passed one the wrong number of parameters, the error was sometimes dicult to track. Contemporary C compilers such as GCC that follow the standard make nding parameter mismatch errors simple.

23.3 Run-time errors

This section examines errors that cannot be caught by the compiler and are exhibited only when the program is run.

23.3.1 Confusion of = and ==

Consider the following program:

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#include <stdio.h> /* To shorten example, not using argp */ int main() { int my_int = 0; if (my_int = 1) { printf ("Hello!\n"); } return 0; } What will this program do? If you guessed that it will print Hello!, you are correct. The assignment operator (=) was used by mistake instead of the equality operator (==). What is being tested in the above if statement is not whether my_int has a value of 1 (which would be written if my_int == 1), but instead what the value is of the assignment statement my_int = 1. Since the value of an assignment statement is always the result of the assignment, and my_int is here being assigned a value of 1, the result is 1, which C considers to be equivalent to TRUE. Thus, the program prints out its greeting. Even the best C programmers make this mistake from time to time, and tracking down an error like this can be maddening. Using the -Wall option of GCC can help at least a little by giving you a warning like the following: equals.c: In function main: equals.c:7: warning: suggest parentheses around assignment used as truth value

23.3.2 Confusing foo++ and ++foo

In many cases, the forms foo++ and ++foo are identical. However, if they are hidden inside another statement, there can be a subtle dierence. For example: my_array [++my_index] = 0; The code ++my_index cause my_index to be incremented by 1 before the assignment takes place, whereas my_index++ would have cause my_index to be incremented after the assignment takes place. Sometimes youll want one and sometimes the other. If you nd that your program is miscalculating by a dierence of 1 (this is called an o-by-one bug and is quite common), a prex or postx ++ could be the cause. The same holds for other prex and postx operators, such as --.

23.3.3 Unwarranted assumptions about storage

Do not assume that the size of a structure is the sum of the sizes of its parts. The two may dier for various reasons; for example, the operating system may be aligning variables with specic addresses within the data structure. Furthermore, the elements of an array may not even be next to one another in memory.

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This kind of code is always safe: int my_array[3]; my_array[0] = 0; my_array[1] = 0; my_array[2] = 0; This kind of code is not: int my_array[3]; *my_array = 0; *(my_array + (1 * sizeof(int))) = 0; *(my_array + (2 * sizeof(int))) = 0; While it is true that the variable my_array used without its square brackets is a pointer to the rst element of the array, you must not assume that you can simply calculate a pointer to the third element with code like the following: my_array + 2 * sizeof(int); Do something like this instead: &(my_array[2]);

23.3.4 Array out of bounds

When you get or set the value of an element of an array, GCC does not check whether you are working within the bound of the array. In the worst case, this can lead to your program crashing (but probably nothing worse happening on a GNU system). See Section 14.1 [Array bounds], page 92, for more information on this error. See Section 23.5 [Introduction to GDB], page 239, for information on how you can check whether you are violating array bounds, using the GNU Debugger.

23.3.5 Uncoordinated output

You may occasionally experience strange eects when writing output to the screen, such as no output at all until the input is complete, or spontaneous bursts of output at seemingly random intervals. This sort of problem usually has to do with the way the output is buered. The solution is usually to write a newline character (\n) to the output when you are ready to display it, or to use a function like fflush to ush the buer. (See Section 16.1.5 [Stream buering], page 121, for more information.)

23.3.6 Global variables and recursion

Global variables and recursion usually do not mix. Make sure that the test for whether to bottom out your recursive function does not depend on a global variable. See Section 21.2 [Controlled recursion], page 222, for more information on why this is a bad thing.

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23.4 Mathematical errors

Mathematical errors are a special kind of run-time error. They may not necessarily cause your program to crash, but they are likely to produce all sorts of strange results if you are doing some complex calculations in your program. Consider the following line of code: root = sqrt (-1.0); Readers with a smattering of mathematics will recognise that this code cannot give a sensible answer. The square root of -1 is a complex number called i. The number i is a so-called imaginary number, and cannot be represented by a oating-point value, which is what the sqrt function returns. What happens in such a case? Two things: 1. The value returned is a special oating-point macro such as NAN (which means not a number) or INFINITY. 2. More importantly from a debugging standpoint, a oating-point exception occurs. An exception is an error condition, and when a oating-point exception is raised, as the jargon goes, an error ag is set in the operating system, signifying what kind of exception it was (in other words, what kind of error caused the exception to be raised). There are several kinds of oating-point exception: FE_INVALID: The Invalid Operation exception. Raised if the operands are invalid for the given operation, for example, if you are trying to take the square root of a negative number, as above. FE_DIVBYZERO: The Division by Zero exception. Raised when a nite, nonzero number is divided by zero. FE_OVERFLOW: The Overow exception. Raised when the result cannot be expressed as a nite value, for example when a nite, nonzero number is divided by zero. Whenever this exception is raised, the FE_INEXACT exception is also raised. FE_UNDERFLOW: The Underow exception. Raised when an intermediate result is too small to be calculated accurately, or when an operations rounded result is too small to be normalized. Normalisation, roughly speaking, is the process of converting a number to scientic notation, such as converting 235 to 2.35e2, where the mantissa, or number to the left of the e, must not be zero. See Section 5.1.2 [Floating point variables], page 21, for more information on scientic notation.) FE_INEXACT: The Inexact exception. Raised if a rounded result is not exact, for example when calculating an irrational number such as the square root of 2. You can test for these exceptions with the fetestexcept function, which takes one parameter, a bitwise ORd list of the exception ags from the list above for which you are testing, and returns a nonzero value containing a bitwise ORd list of the ags you passed it for the exceptions that actually occurred. You can also clear selected ags with the feclearexcept function, which accepts a bitwise-ORd list of exception ags to clear, and returns zero if it was successful. (You can pass either of these function the macro FE_ALL_EXCEPT, which contains all of the oating-point exception ags ORd together.) In case this explanation is unclear, lets look at a practical example.

Questions 23

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Blah blah blah.

23.6 Questions 23
Spot the errors in the following: Blah blah blah.

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24 Example programs
The aim of this section is to provide a substantial example of C programming, using input from and output to disk, GNU-style long options, and the linked list data structure (including insertion, deletion, and sorting of nodes). #include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> #include <argp.h> #define NAME_LEN 100 #define ADDR_LEN 500 const char *argp_program_version = "bigex 1.0"; const char *argp_program_bug_address = "<bug-gnu-utilsgnu.org>";

/* This structure is used by main to communicate with parse_opt. */ struct arguments { char *args[1]; /* No arguments to this function */ int verbose; /* The -v flag */ char *infile; /* Argument for -i */ char *outfile; /* Argument for -o */ };

struct personal_data { char name[NAME_LEN]; char address[ADDR_LEN]; struct personal_data *next; };

/* OPTIONS. Field 1 in ARGP. Order of fields: {NAME, KEY, ARG, FLAGS, DOC}. */ static struct argp_option options[] = { {"verbose", v, 0, 0, "Produce verbose output"}, {"input", i, "INFILE", 0, "Read addresses from INFILE"},

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{"output", o, "OUTFILE", 0, "Output to OUTFILE instead of to standard output"}, {0} };

/* PARSER. Field 2 in ARGP. Order of parameters: KEY, ARG, STATE. */ static error_t parse_opt (int key, char *arg, struct argp_state *state) { struct arguments *arguments = state->input; switch (key) { case v: arguments->verbose = 1; break; case i: arguments->infile = arg; break; case o: arguments->outfile = arg; break; case ARGP_KEY_ARG: if (state->arg_num >= 1) { argp_usage(state); } arguments->args[state->arg_num] = arg; break; case ARGP_KEY_END: if (state->arg_num < 1) { argp_usage (state); } break; default: return ARGP_ERR_UNKNOWN; } return 0; }

/*

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ARGS_DOC. Field 3 in ARGP. A description of the non-option command-line arguments that we accept. */ static char args_doc[] = "ARG";

/* DOC. Field 4 in ARGP. Program documentation. */ static char doc[] = "bigex -- Add ARG new names to an address book file.\vThe largest code example in th

/* The ARGP structure itself. */ static struct argp argp = {options, parse_opt, args_doc, doc};

struct personal_data * new_empty_node() { struct personal_data *new_node; new_node = (struct personal_data*) malloc (sizeof (struct personal_data)); strcpy (new_node->name, ""); strcpy (new_node->address, ""); new_node->next = NULL; return new_node; }

struct personal_data * create_node() { int bytes_read; int nbytes; struct personal_data *current_node; char *name; char *address; current_node = new_empty_node();

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puts ("Name?"); nbytes = NAME_LEN; name = (char *) malloc (nbytes + 1); bytes_read = getline (&name, &nbytes, stdin); if (bytes_read == -1) { puts ("ERROR!"); } else { strncpy (current_node->name, name, NAME_LEN); free (name); } puts ("Address?"); nbytes = ADDR_LEN; address = (char *) malloc (nbytes + 1); bytes_read = getline (&address, &nbytes, stdin); if (bytes_read == -1) { puts ("ERROR!"); } else { strncpy (current_node->address, address, ADDR_LEN); free (address); } printf("\n"); return current_node; }

struct personal_data * find_end_node (struct personal_data *current_node) { if (current_node->next == NULL) { return current_node; } else { return find_end_node (current_node->next); } }

int

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list_length (struct personal_data *root) { struct personal_data *current_node; int count = 0; current_node = root; while (current_node->next != NULL) { current_node = current_node->next; count++; } return count; }

struct personal_data * find_node (struct personal_data *root, int node_wanted) { struct personal_data *current_node; int index = 0; current_node = root; while ((index < node_wanted) && (current_node->next != NULL)) { current_node = current_node->next; index++; } return current_node; }

delete_node (struct personal_data *root, int location) { struct personal_data *previous_node; struct personal_data *current_node; previous_node = find_node (root, location - 1); current_node = find_node (root, location); previous_node->next = current_node->next; }

insert_node (struct personal_data *root,

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Chapter 24: Example programs

struct personal_data *new_node, int location) { struct personal_data *temp_ptr; struct personal_data *previous_node; previous_node = find_node (root, location - 1); temp_ptr = previous_node->next; previous_node->next = new_node; new_node->next = temp_ptr; }

swap_nodes (struct personal_data *root, int a, int b) { int temp; struct personal_data *node_a; struct personal_data *node_b; struct personal_data *temp_node; if (a > b) { temp = a; a = b; b = temp; } node_b = find_node (root, b); delete_node (root, b); node_a = find_node (root, a); delete_node (root, a); insert_node (root, node_b, a); insert_node (root, node_a, b); }

sort_list (struct personal_data *root) { int i, j, list_len, diff; list_len = list_length (root); for (i=2; i<=list_len; i++) { j = i; while (strcmp ( (find_node(root, j))->name, (find_node(root, j-1))->name) < 0)

Example programs

247

{ swap_nodes (root, j, j-1); j--; } } }

print_node (struct personal_data *current_node, FILE *save_stream) { fprintf (save_stream, "%s%s", current_node->name, current_node->address); }

print_list (struct personal_data *current_node, FILE *save_stream) { print_node (current_node, save_stream); if (current_node->next != NULL) { print_list (current_node->next, save_stream); } }

struct personal_data * read_node (FILE *instream) { int bytes_read; int nbytes; struct personal_data *current_node; char *name; char *address; char *blankline; int read_err = 0; current_node = new_empty_node(); nbytes = NAME_LEN; name = (char *) malloc (nbytes + 1); bytes_read = getline (&name, &nbytes, instream); if (bytes_read == -1)

248

Chapter 24: Example programs

{ read_err = 1; } else { puts (name); strncpy (current_node->name, name, NAME_LEN); free (name); } nbytes = ADDR_LEN; address = (char *) malloc (nbytes + 1); bytes_read = getline (&address, &nbytes, instream); if (bytes_read == -1) { read_err = 1; } else { puts (address); strncpy (current_node->address, address, ADDR_LEN); free (address); } if (read_err) { return NULL; } else { return current_node; } }

struct personal_data * read_file (char *infile) { FILE *input_stream = NULL; struct personal_data *root; struct personal_data *end_node; struct personal_data *current_node; root = new_empty_node(); end_node = root; input_stream = fopen (infile, "r"); if (input_stream) {

Example programs

249

while (current_node = read_node (input_stream)) { end_node->next = current_node; end_node = current_node; end_node->next = NULL; } } return root; }

/* The main function. Notice how now the only function call needed to process all command-line options and arguments nicely is argp_parse. */ int main (int argc, char **argv) { struct arguments arguments; struct personal_data *root; struct personal_data *end_node; struct personal_data *current_node; int i, newnum; FILE *save_stream;

/* Set argument defaults */ arguments.infile = NULL; arguments.outfile = NULL; arguments.verbose = 0; /* Where the magic happens */ argp_parse (&argp, argc, argv, 0, 0, &arguments); if (arguments.infile) { root = read_file (arguments.infile); end_node = find_end_node (root); } else { root = new_empty_node(); end_node = root; } /* Where do we send output? */

250

Chapter 24: Example programs

if (arguments.outfile) save_stream = fopen (arguments.outfile, "w"); else save_stream = stdout; newnum = atoi (arguments.args[0]); for (i = 1; i <= newnum; i++) { current_node = create_node(); end_node->next = current_node; end_node = current_node; end_node->next = NULL; } sort_list (root); print_list (root->next, save_stream); /* Close stream; skip error-checking for brevity of example */ fclose (save_stream); /* If in verbose mode, print song stanza */ if (arguments.verbose) {}; return 0; }

A note from the original author

251

Appendix A A note from the original author

This book began life in 1987 as one of the early books on C programming. I wrote it during a summer vacation from University, in England in 1987. It was published by Dabs Press, a small publishing house which specialized in books for microcomputers, particularly Acorns classic BBC micro. With the arrival of the Amiga, I was able to obtain a C compiler. I had had my eye on C for some time, and I felt at the time, that it was the best language I had seen to date for system programming. The publisher and I decided that C would become the BASIC of the 16-bit microcomputer world, which it did. C took o, and the book sold very well for a number of years. As the contract expired, the book was lost in my les, until I met Richard Stallman and he asked me if I would give the tutorial to GNU. I agreed to recover the original les from diskettes and partly re-work them, to remove the emphasis from micro-computers and over to GNU. The result of that work was the rst version of the tutorial. Having handed over the merchandise, I agreed that it would be a good thing for others to update and improve the tutorial. My only requirement was that I would be allowed to explain a few changes for which I would not want to be blamed. I cannot insist that such changes will not be made, but I can at least distance myself from them. They are fairly picky and even silly things, but for one reason or another, they mean a lot to me. The rst has to do with grammar. The grammar which is written and printed in books today is often incorrect. Many colloquialisms and vernacular perversions of grammar are printed and believed to be correct. I am fairly sure that no such errors are mine! The other thing has to do with the style and formatting of C code. The placement of curly braces is something about which I agree with only a handful of people on the planet. Kernighan and Ritchies original placement of curly braces is so horrendous that I would go so far as to call it "wrong", logically and aesthetically. The GNU indentation, which positions braces of the same level in straight vertical alignment, is much better, but in my opinion it gets its indentation wrong. I would indent 3 positions before the rst brace, and keep the text within braces aligned with the braces themselves, rather than indenting within the braces, as GNU does. That, in my personal opinion, makes it easier to identify text and braces belonging together, and leads to optimal clarity. I also insist that curly braces be used around single statements, in loops and tests, even when not strictly required by the language. Finally, having grown up in England and lived in Norway, which have contradictory punctuation rules, I am utterly confused about punctuation and have probably made many errors. With that little spiel said, I now pass the torch to future authors and wish everyone luck. I am happy to see an old summer job not go to waste. Mark Burgess, Oslo March 2001

252

Appendix A: A note from the original author

Reserved words in C

253

Appendix B Reserved words in C

Blah blah blah. Here is a list of all the reserved words in C. The set of reserved words above is used to build up the basic instructions of C; you can not use them in programs your write Please note that this list is somewhat misleading. Many more words are out of bounds. This is because most of the facilities which C oers are in libraries that are included in programs. Once a library has been included in a program, its functions are dened and you cannot use their names yourself. C requires all of these reserved words to be in lower case. (This does mean that, typed in upper case, the reserved words could be used as variable names, but this is not recommended.) (A "d" by the word implies that it is used as part of a declaration.) auto d if break int d case long d char d register d continue return default short d do sizeof double d static d else struct entry switch extern d typedef d float d union d for unsigned d goto while also in modern implementations: enum d void d const d signed d volatile d

254

Appendix B: Reserved words in C

Precedence of operators

255

Appendix C Precedence of operators

The highest priority operators are listed rst. Operator Operation () [] ++ -(type) * & ~ ! * / % + >> << > >= <= < == != & ^ | && || = += -= *= /= %= >>= parentheses square brackets increment decrement cast operator the contents of the address of unary minus ones complement logical NOT multiply divide remainder (MOD) add subtract shift right shift left is greater than greater than or equal to less than or equal to less than is equal to is not equal to bitwise bitwise bitwsie logical logical AND exclusive OR includive OR AND OR

Evaluated left to right left to right right right right right right right right right to to to to to to to to left left left left left left left left

left to right left to right left to right left to right left to right left to right left to right left left left left to to to to right right right right

left to right left to right left left left left left to to to to to right right right right right left left left left left left left

assign add assign subtract assign multiply assign divide assign remainder assign right shift assign

right right right right right right right

to to to to to to to

256

Appendix C: Precedence of operators

<<= &= ^= |=

left shift assign AND assign exclusive OR assign inclusive OR assign

right right right right

to to to to

left left left left

Special characters

257

Appendix D Special characters

Control characters are invisible on the screen. They have special purposes usually to do with cursor movement and are written into an ordinary string or character by typing a backslash character \ followed by some other character. These characters are listed below. A character can be any ASCII character, printable or not printable from values -128 to 127. (But only 0 to 127 are used.) Control characters i.e. non printable characters are put into programs by using a backslash \ and a special character or number. The characters and their meanings are: \b \f \n \r \t \v \x \" \ \\ \ddd backspace BS form feed FF (also clear screen) new line NL (like pressing return) carriage return CR (cursor to start of line) horizontal tab HT vertical tab (not all versions) ??? double quotes (not all versions) single quote character backslash character \ character ddd where ddd is an ASCII code given in octal or base 8. (See Appendix C)

Here is a code example that prints special characters: /***************************************************/ /* */ /* Special Characters */ /* */ /***************************************************/ #include <stdio.h> main () { printf ("Beep! \7 \n"); printf ("ch = \a\ \n"); printf (" <- Start of this line!! \r"); } The output of this program is: Beep! (and the BELL sound) ch = a <- Start of this line!! and the text cursor is left where the arrow points.

258

Appendix D: Special characters

Character conversion table

259

Appendix E Character conversion table

This table lists the decimal, octal, and hexadecimal numbers for characters 0 127.

Decimal 0 1 2 3 4 5

Octal 0 1 2 3 4 5

Hexadecimal 0 1 2 3 4 5

Character CTRL-@ CTRL-A CTRL-B CTRL-C CTRL-D CTRL-E

260

Appendix E: Character conversion table

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

6 7 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 100

6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2A 2B 2C 2D 2E 2F 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 3A 3B 3C 3D 3E 3F 40

CTRL-F CTRL-G CTRL-H CTRL-I CTRL-J CTRL-K CTRL-L CTRL-M CTRL-N CTRL-O CTRL-P CTRL-Q CTRL-R CTRL-S CTRL-T CTRL-U CTRL-V CTRL-W CTRL-X CTRL-Y CTRL-Z CTRL-[ CTRL-\ CTRL-] CTRL-^ CTRL-_ ! " # $ % & ( ) * + , . / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ? @

A word about goto

261

Appendix F A word about goto

This word is redundant in C and encourages poor programming style. For this reason it has been ignored in this book. For completeness, and for those who insist on using it (may their programs recover gracefully) the form of the goto statement is as follows: goto label; label is an identier which occurs somewhere else in the given function and is dened as a label by using the colon: label : printf ("Ugh! You used a goto!");

262

Appendix F: A word about goto

Answers to questions

263

Appendix G Answers to questions

Blah blah blah.

264

Appendix G: Answers to questions

Bibliography

265

Bibliography
Blah blah blah.

266

Bibliography

Glossary

267

Glossary
Blah blah blah.

268

Glossary

Code index

269

Code index
#
# output conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . 127 #define preprocessor directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 #else preprocessor directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 #error preprocessor directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 #if preprocessor directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 #ifdef preprocessor directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 #ifndef preprocessor directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 #include preprocessor directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 #line preprocessor directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 #undef preprocessor directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

- operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 - output conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . 126 - subtraction operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 - unary minus operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 -- decrement operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34, 187 -- operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 -- postx operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 -- prex operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 --static option of GCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 -= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35, 185 -> dot operator of structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 -> member operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 -c option of GCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 -fpic option of GCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 -fPIC option of GCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 -I option of GCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84, 182 -l option of GCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 -L option of GCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

%
% % % % % input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 integer remainder operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 mod operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 modulo operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 output conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

&
& bitwise operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 & bitwise operator truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 & pointer operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 &= bitwise operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

.
. dot operator of structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 .a le sux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 84 .c le sux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 .h le sux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 .o le sux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 .so le sux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 84

input conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . . . 139 output conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . 127

/
/ div operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . / division operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . / integer division operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . /usr/include directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82, /usr/include/linux directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 32 32 84 84

*
* input conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . . . 139 * multiplication operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 * operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 * pointer operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 *= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

=
= (equals sign) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 = assignment operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 = confused with == . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32, 37, 235 = operator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 == confused with = . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32, 37 == confused with = . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

,
, operator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

270

Code index

?
? operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55, 59

<
< less-than operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 << bitwise operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 <<= bitwise operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

[
[ input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

0
0 output conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . 127 0 return code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

|
| (pipe symbol). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | bitwise operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | bitwise operator truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |= bitwise operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 190 192 190

A
a input conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . . . 139 a.out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 abs function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 acos function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 ar program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 ARG eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 ARG parser function argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 arg_num eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 argc variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161, 162 argp function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163, 164, 166 ARGP structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 ARGP_ERR_UNKNOWN return code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 ARGP_KEY_ARG key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 ARGP_KEY_END key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 argp_option structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 argp_option structure elds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 argp_parse function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 argp_usage function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 ARGS_DOC eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 arguments structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 argv array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 argv variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161, 162 asin function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 asprintf function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 atan function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 atan2 function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 atof function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 atoi function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 atol function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 auto storage class specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

~
~ bitwise operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 ~ bitwise operator truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

+
+ addition operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 + operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 + output conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . 126 + unary plus operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 += operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35, 185 ++ increment operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34, 187 ++ operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 ++ postx operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 ++ prex operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

>
> greater-than operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 >> bitwise operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 >>= bitwise operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

^
^ bitwise operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 ^ bitwise operator truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 ^= bitwise operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Code index

271

B
bdflush daemon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 break command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60, 69

C
c input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 c output conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 cast operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22, 23 ceil function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 char type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 20, 105 clean makele target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 clearerr function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 close function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 const type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197, 201 cos function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 cosh function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 creat function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 ctype.h header le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84, 85

EMLINK le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 ENAMETOOLONG le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 ENOENT le name error . . . . . . . . . 152, 153, 158, 159 ENOMEM error code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 ENOSPC le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154, 156, 159 ENOTDIR le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 ENOTEMPTY le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 enum type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 envp array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171, 172 EOF character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 EPERM le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 EROFS le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154, 158, 159 errno system variable . . . . 153, 154, 155, 156, 159, 165 error_t function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 ESPIPE le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 EXDEV le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 exit command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 exp function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 extern storage class specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

D
d input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 d output conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 do ... while command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 DOC eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 double type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

F
f input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 f output conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 fabs function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 FALSE macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 fclose command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 fclose function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 FE_ALL_EXCEPT function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 FE_DIVBYZERO oating-point exception. . . . . . . . 238 FE_INEXACT oating-point exception . . . . . . . . . . 238 FE_INVALID oating-point exception . . . . . . . . . . 238 FE_OVERFLOW oating-point exception . . . . . . . . . 238 FE_UNDERFLOW oating-point exception. . . . . . . . 238 feof function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 ferror function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 fetestexcept function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 fflush function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122, 237 fgetc function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 fgets function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123, 135 le status ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 FLAGS eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 float type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 floor function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 fopen command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113, 115, 116 for command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63, 65, 67, 93

E
E input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 e output conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 E output conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 EACCES le name error . . . . . . . . . 152, 153, 158, 159 EBADF le name error . . . . . . . . . . 154, 156, 157, 158 EBUSY le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158, 159 EEXIST le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 EFBIG le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 EINTR le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 EINVAL error code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 EINVAL le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157, 158, 159 EIO le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 EISDIR le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153, 159 ELOOP le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 else command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 EMFILE le name error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

272

Code index

fprintf function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . fputc function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . fputs function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123, fread function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117, free function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . fscanf function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . fseek function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121, fsync function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156, ftell function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . fwrite function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117,

129 147 124 118 212 143 148 157 121 118

isprint function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ispunct function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . isspace function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . isupper function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . isxdigit function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

85 85 85 85 85

K
KEY eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 KEY parser function argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

G
g input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 G input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 gcc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 161, 172 getc function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 getchar function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 getdelim function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123, 133 getenv function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 getline function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123, 132, 133 getopt function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 gets function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123, 134 glibc library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81, 82, 85 goto command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 grep command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

L
l input conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . . . 140 L input conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . . . 140 l output conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . 128 L output conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . 128 LD_LIBRARY_PATH shell variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 limits.h header le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 ll input conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . . 140 ll output conversion specier modier . . . . . . . 128 log function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 log10 function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 long double type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 long float type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 long long type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 20 long type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 20 lseek function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

H
h input conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . . . 140

I
i input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 i output conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 if command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55, 57 INFINITY macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 input eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 int type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 20 isalnum function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 isalpha function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 isascii function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 iscntrl function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 isdigit function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 isgraph function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 islower function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

M
m output conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . 126, 152 make program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 malloc function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 math.h header le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82, 84, 88 math.h system header le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

N
NAME eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 NAN macro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 NULL pointer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Code index

273

O
O_APPEND le status ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O_CREAT le status ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O_EXCL le status ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O_EXEC le status ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O_RDONLY le status ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O_RDWR le status ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O_TRUNC le status ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O_WRITE le status ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O_WRONLY le status ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . obj makele variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OBJ makele variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OBJECTS makele variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . objs makele variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OBJS makele variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . off_t type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . open command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . open function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153, OPTION_ALIAS option ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OPTION_ARG_OPTIONAL option ag . . . . . . . . . . . . OPTION_HIDDEN option ag. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OPTIONS eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 153 153 153 153 153 153 153 153 177 177 177 177 177 177 158 113 154 165 165 165 164

R
read function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155, 157 realloc function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 register storage class specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 rename function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 return command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17, 62, 69 rewind function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 rewind macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 rm program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 rmdir function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

S
s input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 s output conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 scanf function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47, 141 SEEK_CUR constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 SEEK_END constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 SEEK_SET constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 short type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 20 sin function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 89 sinh function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 size_t type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 sizeof function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 SPACE output conversion specier modier . . . . 127 sprintf function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 sqrt function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44, 89 sscanf function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136, 137 STATE parser function argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 static storage class specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 stdarg.h system header le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 stdin device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 stdio.h header le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 stdlib.h header le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 stdout device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 strcat function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 strcmp function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 strcpy function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 string.h header le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84, 108 strlen function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 strncat function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 strncmp function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 strncpy function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 strstr function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 struct type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197, 202, 205 switch command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55, 59

P
PARSER eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 pclose function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 popen function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 pow function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 printf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 printf function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125, 128 ps command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 putc function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 putchar function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 puts function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Q
q input conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . . . 140 q output conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . 128

274

Code index

T
tan function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 tanh function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 tgmath.h header le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 toascii function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 tolower function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 toupper function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 TRUE macro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 typedef command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

V
void type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197, 200 volatile type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197, 200

W
while command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 write function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156, 157

U
u output conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 ungetc function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 union type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197, 202, 213 unlink function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 unsigned char type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 unsigned int type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 unsigned long long type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 unsigned long type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 unsigned short type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

X
x X x X input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . input conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . output conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . output conversion specier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 139 126 126

Z
z input conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . . . 140 z output conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . 128 Z output conversion specier modier . . . . . . . . 128

Concept index

275

Concept index

.
./ (dot-slash) prex in shell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

\
\ (backslash), for makele continuation lines . . 175

Assignment operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Assignment operator, confused with equality operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32, 37 Assignment, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Assignments, hidden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Automobile as metaphor for computer . . . . . . . . . . 1

A
Actual parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Actual parameters, passing as pointers . . . . . . . . 53 Addition operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Addresses, memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Advantages of the C language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Allocation of memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 AND assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 AND, bitwise, truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Annotating programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 ANSI Standard C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 11, 13 argc, example of. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 argp, example of. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 Argument count variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Argument vector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 argv, example of. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Arithmetic operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32, 35 Array bounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Array out of bounds errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Arrays and for loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Arrays and hidden operators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Arrays and nested loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Arrays and pointers, equivalence of. . . . . . . . . . . 101 Arrays as parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Arrays of strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Arrays of structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Arrays, bounds of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Arrays, dening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Arrays, initializing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93, 98, 99 Arrays, multidimensional . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71, 91, 96 Arrays, multidimensional, initializing . . . . . . . . . . 98 Arrays, one-based . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Arrays, out of bounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Arrays, reading from streams . . . . . . . . . . . . 117, 118 Arrays, writing to streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117, 118 Arrays, zero-based nature of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Assignment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

B
backslash (\), for makele continuation lines . . 175 Binary digits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Binary trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Bit masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192, 193 Bit strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Bit-shift left assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Bit-shift left operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Bit-shift right assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Bit-shift right operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Bitwise AND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Bitwise AND, truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Bitwise exclusive OR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Bitwise exclusive OR, truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Bitwise inclusive OR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Bitwise inclusive OR, truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Bitwise NOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Bitwise NOT, truth table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Bitwise operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Black boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Black boxes, disadvantages of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Block input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Block output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Blocks, code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Bookmark, le position compared to . . . . . . . . . 120 Boolean values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31, 37 Bounds of arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Boxes, black . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 break, terminating loops with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Breaking out of switch statement . . . . . . . . . 60, 62 Buering, full . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Buering, line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Buering, no . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Buering, stream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Buers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Buers, ushing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Bugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

276

Concept index

Bugs, compile-time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Building block, function as . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Building libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Buildings as metaphor for functions . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Bytes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Command shell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Command-line options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Commands, deducing from implicit makele rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 Comment characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 10 Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 10 Comments, example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Comments, style guidelines for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Common library functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Communication via parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Comparison operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31, 37, 38 Compile-time bugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Compile-time errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 231 Compiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 4 Compiler passes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Compiling libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Compiling multiple les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Complex data structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215, 216 Compound decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Computer crash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Concealed diculties of C language . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Constant expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Constants, string . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Continuation lines in makeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 continue, optimizing loops with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 continue, speeding loops with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Controlled recursion with data structures . . . . . 224 Conventions, le name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Conversion speciers, formatted input . . . 137, 138 Conversion speciers, formatted output . . . . . . . 126 Conversion speciers, formatted output, modiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126, 128 Conversion speciers, formatted output, table of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Conversion table, character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Crash, computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Creating shared libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Creating static libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Creation of les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Curly brackets as walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

C
C language and peripherals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 C language as high-level language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 C language as standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi C language, advantages of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 C language, case-sensitivity of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 C language, concealed diculties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 C language, exibility of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 C language, power of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi, 2 C language, succinctness of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 C language, unforgiving nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi C language, why it is useful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi C program, simplest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 C, ANSI Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 11, 13 C, reserved words in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Car as metaphor for computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Case-sensitivity of C language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Cast operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31, 50 Casting pointer types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Casting types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Casting types, example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Character conversion table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Character functions, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Character handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Characters, confused with strings . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Characters, special . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Chess, GNU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Chessboard, represented by array . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Classes, storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24, 25 clean makele target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 cleaning up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 close, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Closing les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Closing les at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Code blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Code, object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Code, source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Combining rules by prerequisite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Comma operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Concept index

277

D
Daemons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Data structure diagrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Data structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Data structures with controlled recursion . . . . . 224 Data structures, as distinguished from structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Data structures, complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215, 216 Data structures, dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Data structures, initializing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Data structures, recursive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Data structures, setting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Data types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Data, dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Decisions, compound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Declaration, variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Declarations, style guidelines for . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Declarations, variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Declaring functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Declaring parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Declaring structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Declaring structures with typedef . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Declaring unions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Declaring variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 21 Deducing commands from implicit makele rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 default makele goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Dening your own types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Deleting les at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 Deprecated formatted string input functions . . 140 Deprecated formatted string output functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Deprecated string input functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Descriptors, le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113, 114 Detail, levels of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Diagrams, data structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Dierence between while and do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Dierent type argument error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Directives, preprocessor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73, 75 Directives, preprocessor, example . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Disadvantages of black boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Disk input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Disk output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

do and while, dierence between . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Dot-slash (./) prex in shell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Dynamic data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 Dynamic data structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

E
editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Emacs Info reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi End-of-le functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 End-of-le indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 End-of-le indicator, resetting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Environment variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 EOR, truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Equality operator, confused with assignment operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32, 37 Equals sign (=) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Equivalence of pointers and arrays . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Error cascade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Error functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Error indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Error indicator, resetting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Errors, compile time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Errors, compile-time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Errors, methematical. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Errors, run-time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Errors, syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Errors, type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 6 Errors, typographical. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Example function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Example program, substantial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Exceptions, oating-point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Exclusive OR assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Exclusive OR, bitwise, truth table . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Executable le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 6 Executable le, running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Expressions, constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 External variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

278

Concept index

F
False Boolean value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 fclose command, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 FDL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi File creation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 File descriptors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113, 114, 151 File functions, low-level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 File name conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 File name errors, usual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 File operations, high-level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 File operations, low-level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 File position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 File position indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 File position, compared to bookmark . . . . . . . . . 120 File routines, high-level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 File, executable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 6 File, header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 File, library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 File, object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 File, object code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 File, source code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Files, closing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Files, header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Files, high-level operations on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Files, low-level operations on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Files, opening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113, 115 Files, random-access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 findex, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Finding le positions at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Flexibility of for command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Floating point numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Floating point variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Floating-point exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Flushing buers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Flushing streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 fopen command, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 for command, exibility of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 for loops and arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 for loops, nested . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Formal parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Format strings, printf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Formatted input conversion speciers . . . . 137, 138 Formatted output conversion speciers . . . . . . . 126 Formatted output conversion speciers, modiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126, 128

Formatted output conversion speciers, table of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Formatted string input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Formatted string input functions, deprecated . . 140 Formatted string output. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Formatted string output functions, deprecated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Formatting code, style guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Free software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Freedom of style in C language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 fsync, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Full buering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Function declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Function names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Function names, characters available for . . . . . . . 13 Function names, style guidelines for . . . . . . . . . . 228 Function prototypes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Function prototypes, parameters in. . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Function prototypes, reasons for using . . . . . . . . . 16 Function values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Function, as building block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Function, example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Function, main . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Functions, as buildings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Functions, common library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Functions, declaring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Functions, macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Functions, macro, caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Functions, macro, example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Functions, mathematical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Functions, names of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Functions, prototyping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Functions, return values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Functions, returning values from . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Functions, string library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Functions, variadic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Functions, with values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Concept index

279

G
GCC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 GDB, introduction to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 general-purpose programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 getline, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Global scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Global variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Global variables and recursion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Global variables, style guidelines for . . . . . . . . . . 229 GNU C Compiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 GNU C Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 GNU Chess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 GNU Compiler Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 GNU FDL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi GNU long options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163, 241 GNU Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi GNU shell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 GNU style guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 GNU system, stability of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 GNU/Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 goal, makele, default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Initialization and pointers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Initialization, style guidelines for . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Initializing arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93, 98, 99 Initializing data structurse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Initializing multidimensional arrays . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Initializing strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Initializing structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 Initializing variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Input and output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Input conversion speciers, formatted . . . . 137, 138 Input functions, string, deprecated formatted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Input, block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Input, disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Input, single-character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Input, string . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123, 132, 134 Input, string formatted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Integer variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Integer variables, sizes of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 International Obfuscated C Code Contest . . . . . . 42

J
Jargon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

H
Header le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Header les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Header les, for libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Hidden assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Hidden operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Hidden operators and arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Hidden operators, style guidelines for . . . . . . . . . 229 High level, the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 High-level le operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 High-level le routines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 High-level language, C language as . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

K
Kinds of library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

L
Levels of detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Libraries, compiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Libraries, linking to your code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Libraries, shared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Libraries, shared, creating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Libraries, static . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Libraries, static, creating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Library le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Library functions, common . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Library functions, string. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Library header les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Library, kinds of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Line buering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

I
if statements, nested . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Implicit makele rules, introduction . . . . . . . . . . 178 Inclusive OR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Inclusive OR assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Inclusive OR, bitwise, truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Info reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

280

Concept index

Linked lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216, 241 Linker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Linking libraries to your code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Lists, linked . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216, 241 Local scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Local variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Local variables, scope of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Local variables, visibility of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Logical operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Long options, GNU. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163, 241 Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Loops, nested . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71, 98 Loops, speeding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Loops, terminating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Loops, terminating with break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Loops, terminating with return . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Low level, closing les at . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Low level, deleting les at . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 Low level, nding le positions at . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Low level, opening les at . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Low level, reading les at. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Low level, renaming les at . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Low level, the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Low level, writing les at . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Low-level le functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Low-level le operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Lvalues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Makele, simple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Makeles, writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Masks, bit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192, 193 Math functions, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Mathematical errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Mathematical function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Mathematical operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Member operator of structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Members of structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Memory addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Memory allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 Memory, random-access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Multidimensional arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71, 96 Multidimensional arrays, initializing . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Multiple les, compiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Multiplication operator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

N
Nested for loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Nested if statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Nested loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71, 98 Nested loops and arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Nested structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Newline character, quoting in makele . . . . . . . . 175 No buering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Node, root . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Nodes, root . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 NOT, bitwise, truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Null pointers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Numbers, oating point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

M
Macro functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Macro functions, caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Macro functions, example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Macros. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 main function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 makele . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Makele commands, introduction to . . . . . . . . . . 174 Makele prerequisites, introduction to . . . . . . . . 174 Makele rule parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Makele rule, introduction to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Makele rules, implicit, introduction . . . . . . . . . 178 Makele rules, tab characters in . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Makele targets, introduction to . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 makele, processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

O
Obfuscated C Code Contest, International . . . . . 42 Object code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Object code le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Object le. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 One-based arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 open, example of. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Opening les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113, 115 Opening les at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Operating system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Operating systems, 64-bit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Operations, order of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Concept index

281

Operator precedence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Operator, addition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Operator, assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Operator, cast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31, 50 Operator, comma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Operator, multiplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Operator, subtraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Operators, arithmetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32, 35 Operators, bitwise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Operators, comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31, 37, 38 Operators, hidden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Operators, hidden, and arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Operators, logical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Operators, mathematical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Operators, precedence of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Operators, shift. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Operators, special assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34, 35 Optimizing loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Options, command-line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 OR, bitwise exclusive, truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 OR, bitwise inclusive, truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 OR, inclusive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Order of operation, unary operators . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Order of operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Output conversion speciers, formatted . . . . . . . 126 Output conversion speciers, formatted, modiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126, 128 Output conversion speciers, formatted, table of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Output, block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Output, disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Output, formatted string . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Output, single-character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Output, string . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Output, uncoordinated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Output, unformatted string. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

P
Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13, 28, 41 Parameters in function prototypes . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Parameters, actual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Parameters, arrays as . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Parameters, communication via . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Parameters, declaring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Parameters, formal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Parameters, passing arrays as . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Parameters, value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41, 43 Parameters, value, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Parameters, variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41, 51, 53 Parentheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Parse error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Parts of makele rules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Passes, compiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Passing actual parameters as pointers . . . . . . . . . 53 Passing arrays as parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Passing by reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Passing by reference, origin of term . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Passing information to program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Passing information with parameters . . . . . . . . . . 41 Passing parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Passing parameters by reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Passing parameters by value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41, 43 Peripherals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Peripherals and C language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Peripherals as devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Pipe symbol (|) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Pipes, programming with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Pointer expressions, pronunciation of . . . . . . . . . . 49 Pointer types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Pointer types, casting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Pointers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Pointers and arrays, equivalence of . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Pointers and initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Pointers to structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Pointers, types of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 POSIX standard, command-line conventions . . 163 Postx -- operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Postx ++ operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Postx and prex ++, confused . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Postx operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Power of C language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi, 2 Precedence of operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Precedence, operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Prex -- operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Prex ++ operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Prex operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Preprocessor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Preprocessor directives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73, 75 Preprocessor directives, example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

282

Concept index

Prerequisite, combining rules by . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 printf format strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 printf, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 processing a makele . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 programming, general-purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Programs, annotating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Pronunciation of pointer expressions . . . . . . . . . . 49 Prototypes, function, parameters in . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Prototyping function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Pseudo-code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Pushback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Pushing back characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

S
scanf, string overows with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Scope of local variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Scope of variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Scope, example of. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Scope, global . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Scope, local . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Setting up data structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Shakespeare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Shared libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Shared libraries, creating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 shell command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Shell, command. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Shell, GNU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Shift operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Simple makele . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Simplest C program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Simplifying makeles with variables . . . . . . . . . . 177 Single-character input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Single-character output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Software, free . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Source code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Source code le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Special assignment operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34, 35 Special assignment operators, example. . . . . . . . . 36 Special characters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Speeding loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69, 70 sscanf example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 sscanf, common errors with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Stability of GNU system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Stack, variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Standard input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Standard output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Static libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Static libraries, creating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Static variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Storage classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24, 25 Storage, false assumptions about . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Stream buering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113, 114 Streams, reading arrays from . . . . . . . . . . . . 117, 118 Streams, writing arrays to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117, 118 String arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 String constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Q
Quoting newline character in makele . . . . . . . . 175

R
RAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Random-access les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Random-access memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 read, example of. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Reading arrays from streams . . . . . . . . . . . . 117, 118 Reading les at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 recompilation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Recursion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Recursion and global variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Recursion, controlled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Recursion, controlled, with data structures. . . . 224 Recursive data structures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Reference, passing by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Reference, passing by, origin of term . . . . . . . . . . 47 Reference, passing parameters by . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 relinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Renaming les at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Reserved words in C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 return, terminating loops with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Returning values from functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Root node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Root nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Run-time errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Running an executable le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Concept index

283

String input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123, 132, 134 String input functions, deprecated . . . . . . . . . . . 134 String input functions, deprecated formatted . . 140 String input, formatted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 String library functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 String output. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 String output functions, formatted, deprecated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 String output, formatted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 String output, unformatted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 String overows with scanf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 String values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Strings, confused with characters. . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Strings, initializing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Structures, -> operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Structures, . dot operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Structures, arrays of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Structures, as distinguished from data structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Structures, data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Structures, declaring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Structures, declaring with typedef . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Structures, initializing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 Structures, member operator of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Structures, members of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Structures, nested . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Structures, pointers to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Structures, using . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 11, 189, 227 Style guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Style guidelines for comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Style guidelines for declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Style guidelines for formatting code . . . . . . . . . . 227 Style guidelines for function names . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Style guidelines for global variables. . . . . . . . . . . 229 Style guidelines for hidden operators . . . . . . . . . 229 Style guidelines for initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Style guidelines for variable names . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Style, freedom of in C language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Style, warning about . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Subtraction operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Suucinctness of C language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 switch statement, breaking out of . . . . . . . . . 60, 62 Syntax errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

T
Tab characters in makele rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Tables, truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Template string, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Terminating loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Terminating loops with break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Terminating loops with return . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Texinfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi To be or not to be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Too few parameters error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Trees, binary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 True Boolean value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Truth tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Type errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 6 typedef, declaring structures with . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Types, casting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Types, casting, example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Types, dening your own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Types, pointer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Types, variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Typographical errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

U
Unary operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Unary operators, order of operation . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Uncoordinated output. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Undened reference error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 Unforgiving nature of C language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Unformatted string output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Unions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Unions and ag variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Unions, declaring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Unions, using . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Unreading characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Using structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Using unions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Usual le name errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

284

Concept index

V
Value parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41, 43 Value parameters, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Value, passing parameters by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Values, Boolean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31, 37 Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Variable declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Variable declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Variable names, characters available for . . . . . . . 19 Variable names, style guidelines for . . . . . . . . . . 228 Variable parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41, 51, 53 Variable stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Variable types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Variables, declaring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 21 Variables, environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Variables, external . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Variables, oating point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Variables, global . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Variables, global, and recursion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Variables, initializing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Variables, integer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Variables, integer, sizes of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Variables, local . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Variables, local, scope of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Variables, local, visibility of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Variables, scope of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Variables, simplifying makeles with . . . . . . . . . 177 Variables, static . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Variables, visibility of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Variadic functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Visibility of local variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Visibility of variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

W
Walls, as metaphors for curly brackets . . . . . . . . . 27 while and do, dierence between . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 write, example of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Writing arrays to streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117, 118 Writing les at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Writing makeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

X
XOR, truth table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Z
Zero-based arrays in C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Assigning variables to one another

285

Bits and pieces

This section is for random chunks of text that are too good to drop from the book, but were out-of-place where they were.

Allocating memory for strings

Neither of the methods above is any good if a program is going to be fetching a lot of strings from a user. It just isnt practical to dene lots of static strings and expect the user to type into the right size boxes! The next step in string handling is therefore to allocate memory for strings personally: in other words to be able to say how much storage is needed for a string while a program is running. C has special memory allocation functions which can do this, not only for strings but for any kind of object. Suppose then that a program is going to get ten strings from the user. Here is one way in which it could be done: 1. Dene one large, static string (or array) for getting one string at a time. Call this a string buer, or waiting place. 2. Dene an array of ten pointers to characters, so that the strings can be recalled easily. 3. Find out how long the string in the string buer is. 4. Allocate memory for the string. 5. Copy the string from the buer to the new storage and place a pointer to it in the array of pointers for reference. 6. Release the memory when it is nished with.

Characters
In C, single characters are written enclosed by single quotes. This is in contrast to strings of characters, which use double quotes ("..."). int ch; ch = a; would give ch the value of the character a. The same eect can also be achieved by writing: char ch = a; It is also possible to have the type: unsigned char This admits ASCII values from 0 to 255, rather than -128 to 127.

Assigning variables to one another

Not only can you assign numbers to variables, you can assign other variables to variables:

286

Bits and pieces

var1 = 23; var2 = var1; The variable or value on either side of the = symbol must usually be of the same type. However, integers and characters will interconvert because characters are stored by their ASCII codes (which are integers!) Thus the following will work: int i; char ch = A; i = ch; printf ("The ASCII code of %c is %d",ch,i); The result of this would be: The ASCII code of A is 65

Function pointers
You can create pointers to functions as well as to variables. Function pointers can be tricky, however, and caution is advised in using them. Function pointers allow you to pass functions as a parameters to another function. This enables you to give the latter function a choice of functions to call. That is, you can plug in a new function in place of an old one simply by passing a dierent parameter. This technique is sometimes called indirection or vectoring. To pass a pointer for one function to a second function, simply use the name of the rst function, as long as there is no variable with the same name. Do not include the rst functions parentheses or parameters when you pass its name. For example, the following code passes a pointer for the function named fred_function to the function barbara_function: void fred(); barbara (fred); Notice that fred is declared with a regular function prototype before barbara calls it. You must also declare barbara, of course: void barbara (void (*function_ptr)() ); Notice the parentheses around function_ptr and the parentheses after it. As far as barbara is concerned, any function passed to it is named (*function_ptr)(), and this is how fred is called in the example below: #include <stdio.h> void fred(); void barbara ( void (*function_ptr)() ); int main(); int main() { barbara (fred);

Function pointers

287

return 0; } void fred() { printf("fred here!\n"); } void barbara ( void (*function_ptr)() ) { /* Call fred */ (*function_ptr)(); } The output from this example is simply fred here!. Again, notice how barbara called fred. Given a pointer to a function, the syntax for calling the function is as follows: variable = (*function pointer)(parameter list); For example, in the program below, the function do_math calls the functions add and subtract with the following line: result = (*math_fn_ptr) (num1, num2); Here is the example program: #include <stdio.h> int int int int add (int, int); subtract (int, int); do_math (int (*math_fn_ptr) (int, int), int, int); main();

int main() { int result; result = do_math (add, 10, 5); printf ("Addition = %d.\n", result); result = do_math (subtract, 40, 5); printf ("Subtraction = %d.\n\n", result); return 0; } int add (int num1, int num2) { return (num1 + num2); }

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Bits and pieces

int subtract (int num1, int num2) { return (num1 - num2); }

int do_math (int (*math_fn_ptr) (int, int), int num1, int num2) { int result; printf ("\ndo_math here.\n"); /* Call one of the math functions passed to us: either add or subtract. */ result = (*math_fn_ptr) (num1, num2); return result; } The output from this program reads: do_math here. Addition = 15. do_math here. Subtraction = 35. You can also initialize a function pointer by setting it to the name of a function, then treating the function pointer as an ordinary function, as in the next example: #include <stdio.h> int main(); void print_it(); void (*fn_ptr)(); int main() { void (*fn_ptr)() = print_it; (*fn_ptr)(); return 0; } void print_it() { printf("We are here! We are here!\n\n"); } Remember to initialize any function pointers you use this way! If you do not, your program will probably crash, because the uninitialized function pointer will contain garbage.

Function pointers

Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 The advantages of C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Questions for Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Using a compiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1 Basic ideas about C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 The compiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 File names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 Typographical errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 Type errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Questions for Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4 4 5 6 6 6

The form of a C program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 A word about style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Example 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Questions for Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 10 11 11

Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Function names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Function examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Functions with values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Function prototyping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The exit function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Questions for Chapter 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 14 14 15 16 17

Variables and declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

5.1 Integer variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.1 The char type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.2 Floating point variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The cast operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.1 Cast operator demo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Storage classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.1 External variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.2 Static variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.3 Other storage classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Questions for Chapter 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 20 20 21 22 22 23 24 24 25 25 25

5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5

5.6

ii

Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Global Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Local Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Communication via parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scope example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Questions for Chapter 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 28 28 29 29

Expressions and operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 The assignment operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.1 Important note about assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Expressions and values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parentheses and Priority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unary Operator Precedence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Special Assignment Operators ++ and -- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . More Special Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparisons and logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Logical operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.9.1 Inclusive OR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Questions for Chapter 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 32 32 33 34 34 34 35 37 38 38 39

Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 Parameters in function prototypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Value Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Actual parameters and formal parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Variadic functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Questions for Chapter 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 42 43 45 45

Pointers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Pointer operators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pointer types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pointers and initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Variable parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4.1 Passing pointers correctly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4.2 Another variable parameter example . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.5 Questions for Chapter 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 49 51 51 52 53 54

10

Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
10.1 if . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2 if... else... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3 Nested if statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4 The ?. . . :. . . operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.5 The switch statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.6 Example Listing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.7 Questions for Chapter 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 56 57 59 59 60 62

Function pointers

iii

11

Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
11.1 while . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 do. . . while . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.3 for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.4 The exibility of for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.5 Terminating and speeding loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.5.1 Terminating loops with break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.5.2 Terminating loops with return . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.5.3 Speeding loops with continue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.6 Nested loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.7 Questions for Chapter 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 64 65 67 69 69 69 70 71 71

12

Preprocessor directives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
12.1 12.2 A few directives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2.1 Macro functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.3 Extended macro example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.4 Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 74 76 77 80

13

Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
13.1 13.2 13.3 Header les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kinds of library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Common library functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.1 Character handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.4 Mathematical functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.5 Questions for Chapter 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 83 84 85 88 90

14

Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 14.6 14.7 Array bounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Arrays and for loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Multidimensional arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Arrays and nested loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Initializing arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Arrays as Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Questions for Chapter 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

15

Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 Conventions and declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Initializing strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . String arrays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . String library functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Questions for Chapter 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 105 106 108 111

iv

16

Input and output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

High-level le routines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1.1 Opening a le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1.2 Closing a le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1.3 Block input and output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1.4 File position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1.5 Stream buering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1.6 End-of-le and error functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2 String output and input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.1 Unformatted string output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.1.1 puts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.1.2 fputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.2 Formatted string output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.2.1 printf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.2.2 Formatted output conversion speciers ........................................ 16.2.3 fprintf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.4 asprintf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.5 Deprecated formatted string output functions . . 16.2.5.1 sprintf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.6 String input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.6.1 getline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.6.2 getdelim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.7 Deprecated string input functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.7.1 gets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.7.2 fgets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.8 Formatted string input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.8.1 sscanf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.8.2 Formatted input conversion speciers ........................................ 16.2.9 Deprecated formatted string input functions . . . 16.2.9.1 scanf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.9.2 String overows with scanf . . . . . . . . . . 16.2.10 fscanf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.3 Single-character input and output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.3.1 getchar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.3.2 putchar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.3.3 getc and fgetc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.3.4 putc and fputc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.3.5 ungetc() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.4 Programming with pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5 Low-level le routines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5.1 Usual le name errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5.2 Opening les at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5.2.1 File creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5.3 Closing les at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5.4 Reading les at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5.5 Writing les at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1 115 115 116 117 120 121 122 123 123 123 124 125 125 126 129 130 131 131 132 132 133 134 134 135 136 136 138 140 140 141 142 143 144 144 145 147 147 149 151 151 152 154 154 155 156

Function pointers 16.5.6 Finding le positions at a low level. . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5.7 Deleting les at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.5.8 Renaming les at a low level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 158 159 160

16.6

17

Putting a program together . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

17.1 argc and argv . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.2 Processing command-line options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.2.1 argp description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.2.2 argp example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.3 Environment variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.4 Compiling multiple les. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.5 Writing a makele. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.5.1 What a Rule Looks Like . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.5.2 A simple makele. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.5.3 make in action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.5.4 Variables simplify makeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.5.5 Letting make deduce commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.5.6 Combining rules by prerequisite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.5.7 Rules for cleaning the directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.6 Building a library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.7 Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 163 164 166 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 179 180 183

18

Advanced operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Hidden operators and values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.1.1 Hidden assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.1.2 Postx and prex ++ and --. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.1.3 Arrays and hidden operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.1.4 A warning about style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.2 The comma operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3 Machine-level operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3.1 Bitwise operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3.2 Shift operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3.3 Truth tables and bit masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3.3.1 Bitwise NOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3.3.2 Bitwise AND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3.3.3 Bitwise inclusive OR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.3.3.4 Bitwise exclusive OR (XOR/EOR) . . . 18.3.3.5 Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.4 Questions 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.1 185 185 187 187 188 189 189 190 190 192 192 192 192 192 193 196

vi

19

More data types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

19.1 enum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.2 void . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.3 volatile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.4 Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.4.1 const . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.4.2 Constant expressions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.5 struct and union. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.6 typedef . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.7 Questions 19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 199 200 201 201 201 202 202 203

20

Data structures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

20.1 struct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 20.1.1 Structure declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 20.1.1.1 Structure declarations using typedef . . 206 20.1.2 Using structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 20.1.3 Arrays of structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 20.1.4 Nested structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 20.1.5 Pointers to structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 20.1.6 Initializing structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 20.2 Memory allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 20.3 union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 20.3.1 Declaration of unions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 20.3.2 Using unions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 20.4 Complex data structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 20.4.1 Data structure diagrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 20.4.2 Dynamic data structures, Pointers and Dynamic Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 20.4.3 Lists and trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 20.4.3.1 Linked lists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 20.4.3.2 Binary trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 20.4.4 Setting up a data structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 20.4.4.1 Designing your data structure . . . . . . . . 217 20.4.4.2 Initializing your data structure . . . . . . . 218 20.5 Further data structure examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 20.6 Questions 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

21

Recursion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 21.5 The stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.1 The stack in detail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Controlled recursion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Controlled recursion with data structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Recursion summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Questions 21 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 221 222 224 225 226

Function pointers

vii

22

Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
22.1 22.2 22.3 22.4 22.5 22.6 22.7 22.8 Formatting code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comments and style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Variable and function names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Declarations and initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Global variables and style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hidden operators and style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Final words on style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Questions 22 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 228 228 228 229 229 230 230

23

Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
23.1 Compile-time errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 23.1.1 parse error at. . . , parse error before. . . . . . . . . . 231 23.1.2 undened reference to. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 23.1.3 unterminated string or character constant . . . . . 233 . . . undeclared (rst use in this function) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 23.2.1 dierent type arg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 23.2.2 too few parameters. . . , too many parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Run-time errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 23.3.1 Confusion of = and == . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 23.3.2 Confusing foo++ and ++foo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 23.3.3 Unwarranted assumptions about storage . . . . . . . 236 23.3.4 Array out of bounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 23.3.5 Uncoordinated output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 23.3.6 Global variables and recursion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Mathematical errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Introduction to GDB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Questions 23 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

23.2

23.3

23.4 23.5 23.6

24

Example programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Appendix A A note from the original author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Appendix B Appendix C Appendix D Appendix E Appendix F Reserved words in C . . . . . . . . . . 253 Precedence of operators . . . . . . . 255 Special characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Character conversion table . . . . . 259 A word about goto . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

viii

Appendix G

Answers to questions . . . . . . . . . . 263

Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Code index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Concept index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 Bits and pieces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Allocating memory for strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Assigning variables to one another. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Function pointers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 285 285 286