MCA First Year- KCA 102
Unit-1.3 Programming in C
Introduction
C Programing language is a general-purpose middle level (Partially low and Partially High level)
Language. C is a programming language. C is one of the oldest and finest programming languages. was
developed by Dennis Ritchie in 1972. It is relatively small language as its small, unambitious feature set
is a real advantage: there's less to learn;
C programming language is a general-purpose, procedural, structured and imperative computer
programming language
It is developed in 1972 by Dennis M. Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories to develop the UNIX
operating system.
C Language is the most widely used computer language. It keeps fluctuating at number one scale of
popularity along with Java programming language, which is also equally popular and most widely
used among modern software programmers.
It is partially low and partially high-level language means it can handle low-level and high-level
activities
C was invented to write an operating system called UNIX. The UNIX OS was totally written in C.
It is a successor of B language which was type less
The language was formalized in 1988 by the American National Standard Institute (ANSI).
Most of the state-of-the-art software have been implemented using C. It can be compiled on a variety
of computer platforms
History of C Language
In the early days, in general every language was designed for some specific purpose. like FORTRAN
(Formula Translator) was used for scientific and mathematical applications, COBOL (Common Business
Oriented Language) was used for business applications. Thus need of a language was recognized which
could withstand most of the purposes. "Necessity is the mother of invention". This was the first step
towards C was put forward by Dennis Ritchie.
The C programming language was developed in 1972, at Bell laboratories by Dennis Ritchie. Initially it
was designed for programming in the operating system called UNIX. After the advent of C, the whole
UNIX operating system rewritten using C language only. Now almost tlvc entire UNIX operating system
and the tools supplied with it including the C compiler itself are written in C. The C language is derived
from the B language, which was written by Ken Thompson at AT&T Bell laboratories.
The B language was adopted from a language called BCPL (Basic Combined Programming
Language), which was developed by Martin Richards at Cambridge University
Characteristics of C
It is a middle level language. It has the simplicity of a high-level language as well as the power
of low level language. This aspect of C makes it suitable~ for writing both application' programs
and system programs.
It is an excellent, efficient and general-purpose structured, procedural, modular imperative
programming language.
It used for mathematical, scientific, business and system software applications. C is small
language, consisting of only 32 English words known as keywords (if, else, for, break etc.:
The power of C augmented by the library functions provided with it. Moreover, the language is
extendible since it allows the users to add their own library functions to the library. C contains
control constructs needed to write a structured program hence it is also known as a structured
programming language.
It includes structures for selection (if.. .else, switch), repetition (while, fo do...while) and for loop
exit\ (break). . .
The programs written in C are portable i.e. programs written for one type of computer or operating
system can be run\on another type of computer or operating system
C also used to develop games, an area where latency is very important i.e. computer has to react
quickly on user input.
Uses of C: C is a language that is used to program a wide variety of systems. Some of the uses of C are
as follows:
Major parts of Windows, Linux, and other operating systems are written in C.
C is used to write driver programs for devices like Tablets, Printers, etc.
C language is used to program embedded systems where programs need to run faster in limited
memory.
General Rules for programming in C
Program Development Life Cycle
Source Code: Code written with .c extension file name
Compiler: Compiler creates object code and stores it on disk. The compiler is a special type of translator.
It translates source code into machine language code (same as object code). Errors: Eventually compiler
errors become no big deal. You leave off a semicolon, misspell, forget a parenthesis, mess up your curly
braces, etc.
Linker: Linker links the object code with the libraries, creates an executable file and stores it on disk.
When you refer to something in a library, the compiler leaves a hole and the linker must resolve the
addressing; in other words, find it to create a complete executable file. Errors: If you get a linking error,
it can’t find something. Usually it’s a typo. Function signatures (the header) etc., must be identical.
Loader: Loader puts the program in memory
Structure of a C program
In C, comments begin with the sequence /* and are terminated by */.
Anything that is between the beginning and ending comments symbols is ignored by the
compiler. Example: /* sample program */
n C, blank lines are permitted and have no effect on the program.
A non-trivial C application typically has following general portions on it: The structure of a C
program looks as follows:
All c programs have to follow a basic structure. A c program starts with the main function and executes
instructions presents inside it. Each instruction terminated with a semicolon(;)
There are some basic rules which are applicable to all the c programs:
1. Every program's execution starts from the main function.
2. All the statements are terminated with a semi-colon.
3. Instructions are case sensitive.
4. Instructions are executed in the same order in which they are written.
Comments
Comments are used to clarify something about the program in plain language. It is a way for us to add
notes to our program. There are two types of comments in c:
5. Single line comment: //This is a comment.
6. Multi line comment : /*This is multi line comment*/
Comments in a C program are not executed and ignored.
Compilation and execution
A compiler is a computer program which converts a c program into machine language so that it can be
easily understood by the computer
A program is written in plain text. This plain text is a combination of instructions in a particular sequence.
The compiler performs some basic checks and finally convert the program into an executable.
Library functions
Elements of a typical C Program
Preprocessor:
C libraries : Most of its intelligence is compartmentalized in libraries Almost all c programs use the
“stdio” or standard input/output library. Many also use the “math” library.
To use a library, include the header file (I.e., “stdio.h”) at the top of the file.
For most special purpose libraries (I.e., math) you need to include the library on the link line.
Every C program line begins with # provides an instruction to the C preprocessor. It is executed
before the actual compilation is done.
Two most common directives:
◦ #include
◦ #define
In our example (#include<stdio.h>) identifies the header file for standard input and output needed by
the printf().
# includes: An include directive tells the preprocessor to include the contents of the specified file at
the point in the program. Path names must either be enclosed by double quotes or angle brackets.
Header Files (.h): Header files contains declaration information for standard library functions or
constants that are referred in programs. They are used to keep source-file size to a minimum and to
reduce the amount of redundant information that must be coded. A header file can be included in
following ways:
1: # include <stdio.h>:
the <> tells the preprocessor to search for the included file in a special known \include directory or
directories.
2: # include “mylib.h”
the double quotes (“ ”) indicate that the current directory should be checked for the header file first.
If it is not found, the special directory (or directories) should be checked.
3 # include “mine\include\mylib.h”
It is similar to 2, but the named relative directory \mine\include is checked for the header file mylib.h.
Relative paths can also be proceeded by the .\ or ..\ notation; absolute paths always begin with a \.
# defines: ANSI C allows you to declare constants. The # define directive is used to tell the
preprocessor to perform a search-and-replace operation.
Example:
# define Pi 3.14159
# define Tax-rate 0.0735
In the example above, the preprocessor will search through the source file and replace every instance
of the token Pi with 3.14159 After performing the search and replace operation, the preprocessor
removes the # define line.
User defined function prototypes: Declares the user-written functions actually defined later in the
source file.
A function prototype is a statement (rather than an entire function declaration) that is placed a head
of a calling function in the source code to define the function's label before it is used. A function
prototype is simply a reproduction of a function header (the first line of a function declaration) that is
terminated with a semi-colon.
Function main () in C :
Compiler identify the start of the program. Every C program has a main ( ). 'main' is a C keyword.
We must not use it for any other variable.
There are following four common ways of main declaration
int void main(void) main( )
main(void) main(void)
{ {
{ {
return 0; } }
} }
Building Blocks of C Programming Language:
C language consist of some characters set, numbers &
some special symbols. The character set of C consist of all the alphabets of English language. C consist
of
1. Character Set
2. Alphabets: A to Z and a to z
3. Numbers 0 to 9
4. Special characters
Delimiters
C Tokens
The words formed from the character set are building blocks of C and are sometimes known as tokens.
These tokens represent the individual entity of language. Following are the different types of token used
in C
1)Keywords 2) Identifiers
3)Constants 4) Operators
5)Punctuation Symbols
Keywords
These are reserved words, whose meaning is already known to the compiler. There are 32 keywords
available in c:
auto double int struct
break long else switch
case return enum typedef
char register extern union
const short float unsigned
continue signed for void
default sizeof goto volatile
do static if while
Identifiers
A 'C' program consist of two types of elements, user defined and system defined. Identifiers is nothing
but a name given to these elements. An identifier is a word used by a programmer to name a variable,
function, or label. identifiers consist of letters and digits, in any order, except that the first character or
label. Identifiers consist of letters and digits if any order, except that the first character must be letter.
Both Upper and lowercase letters can be used
Rules Example
Can contain a mix of characters and numbers. However it cannot H2o
start with a number
First character must be a letter or underscore Number1; _area
Can be of mixed cases including underscore character XsquAre
my_num
Cannot contain any arithmetic operators R*S+T
… or any other punctuation marks… #@x%!!
Cannot be a C keyword/reserved word struct; printf;
Cannot contain a space My height
… identifiers are case sensitive Tax != tax
Variables
"Variables" are simply storage locations to hold data. For every variable, some memory is
allocated. The
size of this memory depends on the type of the variable. For example, 2 bytes are allocated for
integer
type, 4 bytes are allocated for float type, etc.
thus a variable is like a container that stores a ‘value’. Like we have containers at home for storing
rice, dal, sugar, etc. Similar to that variable in c stores value of a constant. Example:
a = 3; //a is assigned “3”
b =4.7; //b is assigned “4.7”
c=’A’; //c is assigned “A”
Rules for naming variables in c:
1. The first character must be an alphabet or underscore (_).
2. No commas, blanks allow.
3. No special symbol other than underscore is allowed
4. Variable names are case sensitive
Escape Sequences
Sometimes, it is necessary to use characters which cannot be typed or has special meaning in C
programming. For example: newline(enter), tab, question mark etc. In order to use these characters,
escape sequence is used.
For example: \n is used for newline. The backslash ( \ ) causes "escape" from the normal way the
characters are interpreted by the compiler. Escape
Sequences Character
\b Backspace
\f Form feed
\n Newline
\r Return
\t Horizontal tab
\v Vertical tab
\\ Backslash
\' Single quotation mark
\" Double quotation mark
\? Question mark
\0 Null character
C language has a lot of valuable library functions which is used to carry out a certain task, for instance,
printf function is used to print values on the screen.
printf(“This is %d”,i);
// %d for integers
// %f for real values
// %c for characters
Types of variables
Integer variables - int a=3;
Real variables - int a=7.7 (wrong as 7.7 is real) ; float a=7.7;
Character variables - char a=’B’;
C Data Types
In the C programming language, data types refer to an extensive system used for declaring variables or
functions of different types.
The type of a variable determines how much space it occupies in storage and how the bit pattern stored
is interpreted. The types in C can be classified as follows: S.N. Types and Description
1 Basic Types: They are arithmetic types and consists of the two types: (a) integer types and (b)
floatingpoint types
Refernces
1. . Hanly J. R. and Koffman E. B.,“Problem Solving and Program Design in C”, Pearson
Education.
2. Schildt H., “C- The Complete Reference”, McGraw-Hill.
3. Kanetkar Y., “Let Us C”, BPB Publications.
4. Gottfried B., “Schaum’s Outlines- Programming in C”, McGraw-Hill Publications.
5. Kochan S.G., “Programming in C”, Addison-Wesley.
6. Dey P. and Ghosh M., “Computer Fundamentals and Programming in C”, Oxford University
Press.
7. Goyal K. K., Sharma M. K. and Thapliyal M. P. “Concept of Computer and C Programming”,
University Science Press
