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Intro To C Programming

Programming Technology

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Intro To C Programming

Programming Technology

Uploaded by

lampteymariama
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© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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@c12mentor
Agenda
Intro to programming languages

In depth understanding of high and low level languages

Exploring the fun with C

Compiling C programs
Once upon a time
programming
languages were
born…
What is a programming language?

● Programming languages define and


compile a set of instructions for the
CPU for performing any specific
task.
● Every programming language has a
set of keywords along with syntax-
that it uses for creating
instructions.
Talking to the computer with instructions….is so fun

● Till now, thousands of programming languages have come into form, with
specific purposes, and variations in terms of the level of abstraction that
they all provide from the hardware.
● A few of these languages provide less or no abstraction at all, while the
others provide a very high abstraction.
● On the basis of this level of abstraction, there are two types of
programming languages:
○ Low-level language
○ High-level language
Low and High level programming languages???

● The primary difference between low and high-level languages is


that:
○ any programmer (like you) can understand, compile, and interpret a high-level
language feasibly as compared to the computers.
○ the computers are capable of understanding the low-level language more
feasibly compared to human beings.
● Low level languages: machine code, assembly language,
● High level languages: Java, C++, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, HTML, …
C (pronounced /ˈsiː/ – like the letter c)

● C is a high-level, general-purpose programming language created by


Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Laboratories in 1972.
● It is a very popular language, despite being old.
● C is strongly associated with UNIX, as it was developed to write the
UNIX operating system.
● It provides a straightforward, consistent, powerful interface for
programming systems.
● That's why the C language is widely used for developing system
software, application software, and embedded systems.
Applications of C

● It is widely used for developing desktop applications and for developing


browsers and their extensions.
● It is widely used in embedded systems.
● It is used to develop databases. MySQL is the most popular database
software which is built using C.
● It is used in developing an operating system such as Apple’s OS X,
Microsoft’s Windows
● It is widely used in IoT applications.
● etc
Is C a high OR low-level language?

● The C programming languages come under the category of middle-level


languages.
● Low-level languages provide little or no abstraction of programming
concepts, whereas C programming languages provide the least degree of
abstraction to performance and efficiency.
● These abstractions like macros, lambda functions, classes help
programmers to use complex functionality in programming without the need
for writing more complex code.
● Because of this reason, C (and C++ ) languages are considered lower-level
languages where maximum performance is paramount; however,
abstractions are necessary to keep code maintainable and highly readable.
Your first C program

● C is a compiled programming language, like Go, Java, Swift or Rust.


● A compiled language generates a binary file that can be directly executed
and distributed.
● C is not garbage collected. This means we have to manage memory
ourselves. It's a complex task and one that requires a lot of attention to
prevent bugs, but it is also what makes C ideal to write programs for
embedded devices like Arduino.
● C does not hide the complexity and the capabilities of the machine
underneath. You have a lot of power, once you know what you can do.
cont…

● we first import the stdio library: gives access to input/output functions.


● Why have libraries? C is a very small language at its core, and anything
that's not part of the core is provided by libraries. Some of those libraries
are built by normal programmers, and made available for others to use.
Some other libraries are built into the compiler e.g stdio and others.
● stdio is the library that provides the printf() function.
● This function is wrapped into a main() function. The main() function is the
entry point of any C program.
cont…

● What is a function? A function is a routine that takes one or more arguments, and
returns a single value.
● In the case of main(), the function gets no arguments, and returns an integer. We identify
that using the void keyword for the argument, and the int keyword for the return value.
● The function has a body, which is wrapped in curly braces. Inside the body we have all the
code that the function needs to perform its operations.
● The printf() function is written differently, as you can see. It has no return value defined,
and we pass a string, wrapped in double quotes. We didn't specify the type of the
argument.
● That's because this is a function invocation. Somewhere, inside the stdio library, printf is
defined as int printf(const char *format, ...);
C program execution

● The C prog. will be run by the operating system when the program is
executed
● To run the program we must first compile it. Any Linux or macOS computer
already comes with a C compiler built-in.
● A compiler is a special program that translates a programming language's
source code into machine code, bytecode or another programming
language.
● GCC is the most common C language compiler
C program compilation

Compilation is the translation of source code


(the code we write) into object code (sequence
of statements in machine language) by a
compiler.

The compilation process has four different


steps:
1. The preprocessing stage
2. The compiling stage
3. The assembling stage
4. The linking stage
Step 1: Preprocessing -E

● The preprocessor has several roles:


○ it gets rid of all the comments in the source file(s)
○ it includes the code of the header file(s), which is a file with extension .h which contains C
function declarations and macro definitions
○ it replaces all of the macros by their values
● The output of this step will be stored in a file with a .i extension
Step 2: Compiling -S

● The compiler will take the preprocessed file and generate IR code
(Intermediate Representation), so this will produce a .s file.
● Other compilers might produce assembly code at this step of compilation.
Step 3: Assembling -c

● The assembler takes the IR code and transforms it into object code, that is
code in machine language (i.e. binary). This will produce a file ending in .o
Step 4: Linking

The linker creates the final executable, in binary, and can play two roles:
○ linking all the source files together, that is all the other object codes in the
project. For example, if I want to compile main.c with another file called
secondary.c and make them into one single program, this is the step where the
object code of secondary.c (that is secondary.o) will be linked to the main.c
object code (main.o).
○ linking function calls with their definitions. The linker knows where to look for
the function definitions in the static libraries or dynamic libraries.
cont..

● By default, after this fourth and last step, that is when you type the whole
gcc main.c command without any options, the compiler will create an
executable program called a.out, that we can run by typing ./a.out in the
command line.
● We can also choose to create an executable program with the name we
want, by adding the “-o” option to the gcc command, placed after the name
of the file or files we are compiling
Resources

1. High and Low level languages


2. C - beginner’s Handbook
3. Compiling C files with GCC
See you at
the next
session!

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