Iosif Ignat, Marius Joldo Laboratory Guide 2.

Expressions in C
T.U. Cluj-Napoca Computer Programming 1
EXPRESSIONS in C



1. Overview

The learning objective of this lab is:

- To understand basic data types in C.
- To understand and construct expressions in C.
- To use operators in small programs.
- To understand the precedence of operators.

2. Brief theory reminder

2.1. Basic data types in C

Wikipedia: "In the C programming language, data types refers to an extensive system for declaring
variables of different types. The language itself provides basic arithmetic types and syntax to build array
and compound types. Several headers in the standard library contain definitions of support types, that
have additional properties, such as exact size, guaranteed.". Table 1 Provides a summary of the basic
data types.


Table 1. Summary of the basic data types in C.
Type Explanation
char
smallest addressable unit of the machine that can contain basic character
set. It is an integer type. Actual type can be either signed or unsigned
depending on the implementation.
signed char same size as char, but guaranteed to be signed.
unsigned char same size as char, but guaranteed to be unsigned.
short
short int
signed short
signed short int
short signed integer type. At least 16 bits in size.
unsigned short
unsigned short int
same as short, but unsigned.
int
signed int
basic signed integer type. At least 16 bits in size.
unsigned
unsigned int
same as int, but unsigned.
Iosif Ignat, Marius Joldo Laboratory Guide 2. Expressions in C
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long
long int
signed long
signed long int
long signed integer type. At least 32 bits in size.
unsigned long
unsigned long int
same as long, but unsigned.
long long
long long int
signed long long
signed long long int
long long signed integer type. At least 64 bits in size. Specified since
the C99 version of the standard.
unsigned long long
unsigned long long int
same as long long, but unsigned. Specified only in C99 version of the
standard.
float
(single precision) floating-point type. Actual properties unspecified,
however on most systems this is IEEE 754 single precision floating point
format.
double
double precision floating-point type. Actual properties unspecified,
however on most systems this is IEEE 754 double precision floating point
format.
long double
extended precision floating-point type. Actual properties unspecified.
Unlike types float and double, it can be either 80-bit floating point
format, the non-IEEE "double-double" or IEEE 754 quadruple precision
floating-point format if a higher precision format is provided, otherwise it
is the same as double. See this page for details.

Properties of integer types
- CHAR_BIT size of the char type in bits (at least 8 bits)
- SCHAR_MIN, SHRT_MIN, INT_MIN, LONG_MIN, LLONG_MIN(C99) minimum possible value of
signed integer
types: signedchar, signed short, signed int, signed long, signed long long
- SCHAR_MAX, SHRT_MAX, INT_MAX, LONG_MAX, LLONG_MAX(C99) maximum possible value of
signed integer
types: signedchar, signed short, signed int, signed long, signed long long
- UCHAR_MAX, USHRT_MAX, UINT_MAX, ULONG_MAX, ULLONG_MAX(C99) maximum possible
value of unsigned integer
types:unsigned char, unsigned short, unsigned int, unsigned long, unsigned long
long
- CHAR_MIN minimum possible value of char
- CHAR_MAX maximum possible value of char
- MB_LEN_MAX maximum number of bytes in a multibyte character
Iosif Ignat, Marius Joldo Laboratory Guide 2. Expressions in C
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Properties of floating-point types
- FLT_MIN, DBL_MIN, LDBL_MIN minimum normalized positive value
of float, double, long double respectively
- FLT_TRUE_MIN, DBL_TRUE_MIN, LDBL_TRUE_MIN (C11) minimum positive value
of float, double, long doublerespectively
- FLT_MAX, DBL_MAX, LDBL_MAX maximum finite value
of float, double, long double respectively
- FLT_ROUNDS rounding mode for floating-point operations
- FLT_EVAL_METHOD evaluation method of expressions involving different floating-point types
(only available in C99)
- FLT_RADIX radix of the exponent in the floating-point types
- FLT_DIG, DBL_DIG, LDBL_DIG number of decimal digits that can be represented without
losing precision by float,double, long double respectively
- FLT_EPSILON, DBL_EPSILON, LDBL_EPSILON difference between 1.0 and the next
representable value of float, double,long double respectively
- FLT_MANT_DIG, DBL_MANT_DIG, LDBL_MANT_DIG number of FLT_RADIX-base digits in the
floating-point significand for types float, double, long double respectively
- FLT_MIN_EXP, DBL_MIN_EXP, LDBL_MIN_EXP minimum negative integer such
that FLT_RADIX raised to a power one less than that number is a
normalized float, double, long double respectively
- FLT_MIN_10_EXP, DBL_MIN_10_EXP, LDBL_MIN_10_EXP minimum negative integer such
that 10 raised to a power one less than that number is a
normalized float, double, long double respectively
- FLT_MAX_EXP, DBL_MAX_EXP, LDBL_MAX_EXP maximum positive integer such
that FLT_RADIX raised to a power one more than that number is a
normalized float, double, long double respectively
- FLT_MAX_10_EXP, DBL_MAX_10_EXP, LDBL_MAX_10_EXP maximum positive integer such
that 10 raised to a power one more than that number is a
normalized float, double, long double respectively
- DECIMAL_DIG minimum number of decimal digits needed to represent all the significant digits
for long double.
[4]
The value is at least 10. (only available in C99)

2.2. Defining an expression

An expression is composed of a single operand or more operands glued together by operators.
An operand may be:
- A constant, e.g. 3, 20.4, d.
- A symbolic constant, e.g. PI.
- A name for a scalar variable, e.g. a, b, x.
- A name for an array variable.
- A name for a structure.
- A name for a type.
- An indexed variable, e.g. a[i], a[7].
Iosif Ignat, Marius Joldo Laboratory Guide 2. Expressions in C
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- A name for a function.
- A reference to an element of a structure.
- A function call.
- An expression surrounded by parenthesis.

An operand has a value and a type associated with it.
Operators may be unary or binary.
When evaluating an expression, the following are taken into account:
- Operator precedence.
- How operators of the same precedence associate.
- Default conversion rules.


2.3. Operators

The operators of C/C++ belong to one of the following categories:

- Arithmetic operators:
- Unary operators: +,
- Binary multiplicative operators: *, /, %
- Binary additive operators: +,
- Relational operators: <, <=, >, >=
- Equality operators: = =, !=
- Logic operators: !, &&, ||
- Logic operators on bits: ~, <<, >>, &, ^, |
- Assignment operators: =, /=, *=, %=, +=, =, <<=, >>=, &=, ^=, |=
- Pre- and post increment operators : ++,
- Type cast operators: (type)
- Dimension operators: sizeof
- Referencing (address) operators: &
- Parenthesis operators: ( ), [ ]
- Conditional operators: ?, :
- Comma operator: ,
- Dereferencing operator: *
- Structure component access operator: . , >

Note: C++ has a number of additional operators:

- Resolution operator: ::
- An operator for the reference type: &
- An operator to allocate/deal locate the heap:
- Type constructor/destructor invocation operators: new/delete

Operator precedence, in the decreasing order of their priority, is given in the table below:

Priority Operators
15-maximum ( ) [ ] ->
14 +(unary) -(unary) &(unary) *(unary) ++ --
(type) sizeof ! ~
13 *(binary) / %
12 +(binary) -(binary)
11 << >>
Iosif Ignat, Marius Joldo Laboratory Guide 2. Expressions in C
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10 < <= > >=
9 = = !=
8 &(binary)
7 ^
6 |
5 &&
4 ||
3 ? :
2 = <<= >>= += -= *= /= %= &= ^= |=
1-minimm ,


Operators on the same row have identical precedence.

Operators are associated in the left-to-right order, except for the unary, conditional, and assignment
operators which associate right-to-left.

2.4. Default conversion rules

The default conversion rules are stated as follows:
- If a binary operator is applied to operands of the same type, then the result will take the
identical type of the operands.
- If a binary operator is applied to operands of the different types, then the operand of an
inferior (more restrictive) type is converted by default to the superior type of the other
operand, and the result gets the superior type.

Type priority, in decreasing order, is the following:

- long double (maximum priority);
- double;
- float;
- unsigned long;
- long;
- int (minimum priority).


3. Lab Tasks

3.1. Write a program to calculate the value z= x**y, for variables x and y of the type double.

3.2. Explain the difference between real (floating point) division and the integer division.

3.3. Write a program that reads the value of an angle expressed in degrees and calculates the values for
its sine, cosine and tangent.

3.4. Write a program that reads a positive integer number in the range [1600, 4900]. Knowing that that
number represents a year, check whether that year is bissextile or not.

3.5. Using conditional expressions, write a program which reads a real value for x and then computes the
value for the function:

Iosif Ignat, Marius Joldo Laboratory Guide 2. Expressions in C
T.U. Cluj-Napoca Computer Programming 6

2
2
2
2 5
0
4 7
) (
2
2
>
=
<

+
+
=
x if
x if
x if
x x
x x
x f

3.6. Write a program which reads a real number x, representing a measurement for an angle in Radians,
and then converts it to degrees, minutes, and seconds.

3.7. Write a program to simulate the operation of a counting clock (indicating the hour, minute, and
second).

3.8. Write a program to show the number of bytes the C/C++ primitive data types take in the computer
memory.

3.9. Convert to binary, by computation, your birth year and the current year.
a) Show how the two years are represented as data of type int.
b) Show the effect the shift operations: left shift by 4 bits, right shift by 2 bits, and 1s
complement applied to this data.
c) Show the effect of the bitwise operations &, ^, | , upon the provided data.
d) Write a program to check the correctness your calculations.

3.10. Write a program which effects arithmetic operations upon two data items, one of which is an
integer, and the other a real number. Execute this program using values which yield results outside the
internal representation limits. What happens when limits are over(under)flowed?

3.11. Write a program which reads the integer numbers a, b, c, d and outputs the highest value of
fractions a/b and c/d.

3.12. Write a program to determine the relative position of a straight line in relationship with a given
circle. Your program will read: the coordinates of the center of the circle, its radius, and the coordinates
for two points located on the straight line.

3.13. Write a program which reads the planar coordinates of the vertices of a triangle, and then describes
the relative position (i.e. above, below, left, right, inside, on border) of a point in the same plane, given
by its coordinates, in relationship with this triangle.

3.14. Write a program to calculate the ideal weight of a person using the following formulas:

W_male = 50 + 0.75*(height-150) + (age-20)/4;
W_female= W_male - 10;

Sex, height (in centimeters), and age (in years) are to be read.

3.15. Write a program to convert Cartesian coordinates of a given point to polar coordinates.

Hints. The two polar coordinates r and can be converted to the Cartesian coordinates x and y by using
the trigonometric functions sine and cosine:


while the two Cartesian coordinates x and y can be converted to polar coordinate r by
(by a simple application of the Pythagorean theorem).
Iosif Ignat, Marius Joldo Laboratory Guide 2. Expressions in C
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To determine the angular coordinate , the following two ideas must be considered:
For r = 0, can be set to any real value.
For r 0, to get a unique representation for , it must be limited to an interval of size 2. Conventional
choices for such an interval are [0, 2) and (, ].
To obtain in the interval [0, 2), the following may be used (arctan denotes the inverse of the tangent
function):

To obtain in the interval (, ], the following may be used:

One may avoid having to keep track of the numerator and denominator signs by use of the atan2
function, which has separate arguments for the numerator and the denominator.