C programming

Introduction to the C
programming language
Gabriele Cecchetti
October 2020
 “The textbook” about C

 Kernighan and Ritchie: The C Programming Language

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 What is C?
 Invented by Dennis Ritchie - AT&T Bell Labs, in
1972
 Widely used today
 Extends to newer system architectures
 Efficiency/performance
 Low-level access

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 C Evolution
 1972 - C Invention
 1978 - 1st specification published (K&R C)
 1989 - C89 standard (ANSI C or standard C)
 1990 - ANSI C adopted by ISO, AKA C90
 1999 - C99 standard
 Not completely implemented in many compilers
 2011 – C11 standard
 2018 – C18 standard
 (maybe 2021+ – C2x will be the next standard)

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 C Features
 Few keywords
 Structures, unions, compound data types
 Pointers, arrays
 Standard library
 Compiles to native code
 Macro preprocessor

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 C usage
 Systems programming
 Operating systems
 Microcontrollers
 Embedded processors
 DSP processors
 Network devices (switches, routers, etc)

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 C vs. Others languages
 Recent derivatives: C++, C#, Objective-C
 Had some influence on: Java, Perl, PHP, Python
 C lacks:
 Exceptions
 Range checking
 Garbage collection
 OOP
 …
 C is a lower level language
 It can interact/exploit directly HW
components/features

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 C source and header files
 *.c extension for C source files
 *.h extension for C header files
 They are editable by any text editor, or
you can use any suitable IDE (Integrated
Development Environment) like:
 Eclipse CDT, MS VC++ Express edition, VS code,…
 These IDE suitable for large programs and they
include Editor, Compiler, Debugger, …

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 Basic C program

First steps

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 My first C program
 Let’s start with a classic: hello.c
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
printf("Hello world!\n");
return 0;
}

#include includes definitions for library functions (in this

case, the printf() function is defined in header
file stdio.h)
main this function must always be present in a C
program. It is the first function to be invoked (the
entry point)
return end of the function, returns a value to the shell

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 How to compile and run the program
 The C language is a compiled language
 It means that the above program must be translated into
a binary code before being executed
 The compiler does the job
 reads the source file, translates it into binary code,
and produces an executable file
 In FreeBSD, Linux and other Unix systems, the
following to compile and then run the program use
the following commands:
> gcc hello.c -o hello
>./hello
Hello world!

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 Compiling the code
 The translation from high-level language to binary
is done by the compiler (and the linker)
 the compiler translates the code you wrote in the source
file (hello.c)
 the linker links external code from libraries of existing
functions (in our case, the printf() function for output
on screen) gcc hello.c −o hello hello

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 Multiple source files
 A program can consist of multiple source files
 Every source file (.c) is called module and usually
consists of a set of well-defined functions that work
together
 Every source file is compiled separately (it is a
compilation unit) to produce an object file
(extension: .o or .obj)

 All objects files and libraries are then linked

together to produce an executable

 We will see later how it works

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 Running a program
 To execute a program, you must tell the Operating
System to:
 load the program in main memory (RAM)
 start executing the program instructions sequentially
 The OS is itself a program!
 It is a high-order program that controls the execution of
user programs
 The OS can:
 execute several user programs concurrently or in parallel
 suspend or kill a user program
 coordinate and synchronize user programs
 let them communicate and exchange data
 and many other things!
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 C language syntax and fundamentals

Declaration, definitions and the

main function

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 Declarations and definitions
 A C program is a sequence of global declarations
and definitions
 declarations of global variables and functions
 definitions of variables and functions
 often, declarations are implicit (the definition is an implicit
declaration)
int a; // declaration + definition
int b = 10; // declaration + definition + initialization

int f(int); // declaration only

int f(int p) // definition

{
...
}

int g() // declaration + definition

{
...
}

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 Functions
 The code goes inside functions

 There must be always at least one definition of a

function called main
 In the hello.c example:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
printf("Hello world!\n");
return 0;
}

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 The main() function
 When a program is launched, the OS implicitly
calls the main function

 The main function is also called the program entry

point.

 Its minimal form is:

int main(void);

 If programs takes arguments, its form is:

int main(int argc, char *argv[]);

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 Anatomy of the main function
 Then general form of main function is:
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
...
}

 main is the function name, and must be unique in a

program;
 int is the return type (will see later);
 between () parenthesis we have the list of parameters with
their type, separated by commas:
 in the example above, two parameters, argc and argv;
 between {} parenthesis, we have the function body:
 the code that is executed when the function is called.

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 C language syntax and fundamentals

Data types, variables and

constants

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 Data types
 A type dictates the variable range (or domain) (from
the number of bits) and the operations you can
perform on an variable
 In C, every variable must have a type
 C has a small family of predefined datatypes
 numeric:
 int an integer number (usually 32 bits)
 float a floating-point number, single precision (32 bits)
 double a floating-point number, double precision (64 bits)
 character:
 char an ASCII character (8 bits)
 user defined:
 struct, union
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 Signed and unsigned data types
 A numeric data type can be signed or unsigned:

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 Constants
 Constants are numeric, alphabetic or literal fixed
values that can be used in operations on variables,
expressions or in functions; e.g.
 integers
const int a = 3;
const int b = 3UL;
const int c = 0x12;
 floating point
const float pi = 3.141;
 character and literals
const char d = 'A';
const char e = '\x41';
const char newline = '\n'
 string
const char* s = "Hello world";
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 The enum data type
 enum is the abbreviation for ENUMERATE, and we can use
this keyword to declare and initialize a sequence of integer
constants.
enum colors {RED, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE};

 If you don't assign a value to a constant, the default value

for the first one in the list - RED in our case, has the value of
0. The rest of the undefined constants have a value 1 more
than the one before, so in our case, YELLOW is 1, GREEN is
2 and BLUE is 3.

 But you could assign values if you wanted to:

enum colors {RED=1, YELLOW, GREEN=6, BLUE };
In this case YELLOW is 2 and BLUE is 7.
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 Variables
 A variable is a location in memory with a symbolic
name
 A variable is used as temporary or permanent storage
of data to perform complex computation
 Therefore a variable is named link/reference to the value
stored in the system's memory or an expression that can
be evaluated
 In C, every variable must have a type

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 Declaring variables
 Must declare variables before use
 The general form of variable declaration is:
type variable_name [ = initial_value][,][ ... ];
 Can declare/initialize multiple variables at once
 Usually, declaration and definition coincide for variables
 The definition consists of the type keyword followed by the name of the
variable, followed by the “;” symbol.
 Examples:
int a; /* an integer variable of name a */
double b; /* a double-precision floating point */
char c; /* a character */
...
a = 10; /* assignment: a now contains 10 */
b = b + 1.5; /* after assignment, b is equal to the previous
value of b plus 1.5 */
c = 'a'; /* c is equal to the ASCII value
of character 'a' */

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 Variable names
 cannot start with a number
 cannot contain spaces
 cannot contain special symbols like ‘+’, ‘-’, ‘*’, ‘/’,
‘%’, etc.
 cannot be arbitrarily long (255 char max)
 cannot be equal to reserved keywords (like int,
double, for, etc.)

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 Variable initialization
 It is possible to assign an initial value to a variable
during definition.
 If you do not specify a value, the initial value of the
variable is default (if it is static or global) or
undefined (if it is automatic) [we will see this later].
 It is good programming practice to always initialize
a variable.
 Many programming errors are due to programmers that
forget to initialize a variable before using it:
int a = 0; /* the initial value of a is 0 */
int i; /* undefined initial value of i*/
int b = 4; /* the initial value of b is 4 */

b = i + 5; /* error! the value of i is not defined! */

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 Operations on variables
 The basic arithmetic operators are:
+ addition,
- subtraction,
* multiplication,
/ division,
% modulus (remainder of the integer division).

 Notes:
 when division is applied to integers, the result is an integer (it
truncates the decimal part);
 modulus can only be applied to integers;
 multiplication, division and modulus have precedence over addition
and subtraction;
 to change precedence, you can use parenthesis.

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 Expression
 A C program is a sequence of expressions, and expression
is a combination of operators on variables, constants and
functions. Example:
/* definitions of variables */
int a, b;
int division;
int remainder;

double area_circle;
double radius;

/* expressions */
a = 15;
b = 6;
division = a / b;
remainder = a % b;
radius = 2.4;
area_circle = 3.14 * radius * radius;

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 Assignment and expressions
 Assigning a value to a variable is itself an
expression:
area_circle = 3.14 * radius * radius;

 The above expression is composed by three

elements:
 the operator is =
 the left operand must always be a variable name (cannot
be another expression!);
 the right operand can be any expression, (in our case two
multiplications);
 the right operand is evaluated first, and then the result is
assigned to the left operand (the variable).

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 Assignment expressions
 The following expression is perfectly legal:
int a, b;

b = a = 5;

 You must read it from right to left:

 a = 5 is first evaluated by assigning value 5 to variable a;
the result of this expression is 5
 then, the result is assigned to variable b (whose value after
assignment is hence 5)
 What are the values of a and b after the following two
expressions?
int a, b;

b = (a = 5) + 1;
b = a = 5 + 1;

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 Variables

Simple I/O

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 Formatted output
 To output on screen, you can use the printf
library function (example exprintf.c)
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
printf("Characters: %c %c \n", ’a’, 65);
printf("Decimals: %d %ld\n", 1977, 650000);
printf("Preceding with blanks: %10d \n", 1977);
printf("Preceding with zeros: %010d \n", 1977);
printf("Some different radixes: %d %x %o %#x %#o \n",
100, 100, 100, 100, 100);
printf("floats: %4.2f %+.0e %E \n", 3.1416, 3.1416,
3.1416);
printf("Width trick: %*d \n", 5, 10);
printf("%s \n", "A string");
return 0;
}

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 Formatted output: printf
int printf(char format[], arg1, arg2, ... )
 It takes in a variable number of arguments.
 It returns the number of characters printed.
 The format can contain literal strings as well as
format specifiers (starts with %).
printf("hello world\n");
printf("%d\n", 10);
printf("Prices: %d and %d\n", 10,20);

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 printf format specification - type
 %[flags][width][.precision][length]<type>

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 printf format specification - width
 %[flags][width][.precision][length]<type>

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 printf format specification - flag
 %[flags][width][.precision][length]<type>

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 printf format specification - precision
 %[flags][width][.precision][length]<type>

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 printf format specification - modifier
 %[flags][width][.precision][length]<type>

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 Formatted input
 To input variables from the keyboard, you can use
the scanf library function
#include <stdio.h>

int main ()
{
char str[80];
int i;

printf("Enter your family name: ");

scanf ("%s",str);
printf("Enter your age: ");
scanf ("%d",&i);
printf("Mr. %s , %d years old.\n", str, i);
printf("Enter a hexadecimal number: ");
scanf ("%x",&i);
printf("You have entered %#x (%d).\n", i, i);
return 0;
}

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 Formatted Input: scanf
int scanf(char* format, ... )
 scanf reads characters from standard input, interpreting
them according to format specification.
 Similar to printf , scanf also takes variable number of
arguments.
 Arguments must be address of variables.
 The format specification is the same as that for printf .
 When multiple items are to be read, each item is assumed
to be separated by white space.
 scanf ignores white spaces.
 It returns the number of items read or EOF.

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 Exercises
 See exscanf.c example
1) Write a program that asks the user to enter the
radius of a circle, computes the area and the
circumference
 define variables and initialize them
 use scanf to input radius variable
 compute the values
 formatted input on screen

2) Write a program that asks for two integer numbers

a and b, computes the quotient and the remainder,
and prints them on screen
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