C Programming Basics

Fundamentals of Computer and Programming

Hossein Zeinali
Slides by Dr. Bahador Bakhshi
CE Department, Amirkabir University of Technology
What We Will Learn
What is the C
Variables
 Types

Values
Casting
Constants & Definition

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The C Language
C is a general-purpose programming
language
C is developed by Dennis Ritchie at Bell
Laboratories
C is one of the widely used languages
 Application development
 System programs, most operating systems are
developed in C: Unix, Linux
 Many other languages are based on it

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Programming in C Language
C programming language
 A set of notations for representing programs

C standard libraries
 A set of developed programs (functions)

C programming environment
 A set of tools to aid program development

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The First Example

Write a program that prints

“Hello the CE juniors :-)”

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The First C Program

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void){
printf("Hello the CE juniors :-) \n");
return 0;
}

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General Rules
C is case sensitive: main is not MaIn
A “;” is required after each statement
Each program should have a main function
int main(void){…
void main(void){…
main(){…
int main(int argc, char ** argv){…

 Program starts running from the main

You should follow coding style (beautiful code)

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General Rules: Spaces

Equal Statements
int main(void){ int main (
void) {

printf("abc"); printf ( "abc"

); return 0;
return 0;

return 0; return
0;

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General Rules: Spaces

Not Equal Statements

int main(void){ intmain(void) {

printf("abc def"); printf("abcdef");

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Comments
/* Our first

C program */
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void){
//This program prints a simple message
printf("Hello the CE juniors :-) \n");
return 0;
}
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The First C Program
You should
 Develop the source code of program
 Compile
 Run
 Debug

All of them can be done in IDE

 Code::Blocks
 CLion
 VS Code
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What We Will Learn
What is the C
Variables
 Types

Values
Casting
Constants & Definition

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Variables
 “write a program to calculate the sum of two
numbers given by user”
 Solving problems
 Input data  Algorithm  Output date

 What we need
 Implementing the algorithm
 Named Functions
 We will discuss later
 Storing the input/output data
 Variables
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Variables (cont’d)
Data is stored in the main memory

Variables
 Are the name of locations in the main memory
 We use names instead of physical addresses

 Specify the coding of the location

 What do the “01”s means?
 What is the type of data?

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Variables
Variables in the C
<Qualifier> <Type> <Identifier>;
<Qualifier>
 Is optional
 We will discuss later

<Type>
 Specifies the coding

<Identifier>
 Is the name
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Types: Integers
Integer numbers
 Different types, different sizes, different ranges

Type Size Unsigned Signed

short 16Bits [0,216 - 1] [- 215,215 - 1]
int 32Bits [0,232 - 1] [- 231,231 - 1]
long or 32/64
long int [0,232|64 - 1] [- 231|63,232|63- 1]
Bits
long long or 64
long long int Bits [0,264 - 1] [- 263,263 - 1]

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Types: Float & Double
Floating point number
 float 32 bits
 double 64 bits
 long double 96 bits

Limited precision
 float: 8 digits precision
 1.0 == 1.00000001
 double: 16 digits precision
 1.0 == 1.0000000000000001
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Overflow & Underflow
All types have limited number of bits
 Limited range of number are supported
 Limited precision

Overflow
 Assign a very big number to a variable that is
larger than the limit of the variable

Underflow
 Assign a very small number to a variable that is
smaller than the limit of the variable Example

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Types: Char
Character
 Type: char

Single letters of the alphabet, punctuation

symbols

Should be single quotation

 ‘a’, ‘^’, ‘z’, ‘0’, ‘1’, ‘\n’, ‘\’’, ‘\0’

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Types: Booleans
#include <stdbool.h>

Logics (Boolean): bool

Only two values: false , true

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Variables: Identifier
 The name of variables: identifier
 Identifier is string (single word) of
 Alphabet
 Numbers
 “_”

 But
 Cannot start with digits
 Cannot be the key-words (reserved words)
 Cannot be duplicated
 Should not be library function names: printf

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Variables: Identifier
Use readable identifiers:
 Do not use memorystartaddress
 Use memory_start_address
 Do not use xyz, abc, z, x, t
 Use counter, sum, average, result,
parameter, …
 Do not be lazy
 Use meaningful names

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C reserved words (cannot use for identifiers)

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C++ reserved words (cannot use for identifiers)

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Variable Identifiers
Valid identifiers
student grade sum
all_students average_grade_1

Invalid identifiers
if 32_test wrong* $sds$

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Variables: Declaration (‫)اعالن‬
Reserve memory for variable: declaration
 <type> <identifier>;

A variable must be declared before use

char test_char;
int sample_int;
long my_long;
double sum, average, total;
int id, counter, value;
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Variable Type Effect (in complied Lang.)
Important note: the type of variable is NOT
stored in the main memory
 After compiling the program  NO type is
associated to memory locations!!!

So, what does do the type?!

 It determines the “operations” that work with the
memory location Integer + and =
Performed by ALU
E.g. Float + and =
 int x, y, z; z = x + y; Performed by FPU

 float a, b, c; c = a + b;
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Variables: Initial Values
What is the initial value of a variable?
 In C: we do not know.
 In C: it is not 0.

We need to assign a value to each

variable before use it.

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What We Will Learn
What is the C
Variables
 Types

Values
Casting
Constants & Definition

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Constants in C
Values
 Numeric
 Integer numbers
 Float numbers
 Char
 Strings

Symbolic constant
Constant variables

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Values
Variables
 Save/restore data (value) to/from memory

Declaration specifies the type and name

(identifier) of variable
Assigning value to the variable: assignment
 <identifier> = <value>;
 Compute the <value> and save result in memory
location specified by <identifier>

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Values: Examples
int i, j;
long l;
float f;
double d;

i = 10;
j = 20;
f = 20.0;
l = 218;
d = 19.9;
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Value Types
Where are the values stored?!
int x = 20;
x = 30 + 40;
 In main memory
 There is a logical section for these constant values

So, we need to specify the type of the value

 The coding of 01s of the value

The type of value is determined from the

value itself
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Values: Integers
Valid integer values
10; -20; +400; 0x12A; 011; 5000L

Invalid integer values

10.0; -+20; -40 0; 600,000; 5000 L

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Values: Float & Double
Valid numbers:
0.2; .5; -.67; 20.0; 60e10; 7e-2

Invalid numbers:
0. 2; 20. 0; 20 .0; 7 e; 6e; e12

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Values: Chars
Char values
 Should be enclosed in single quotation
 ‘a’, ‘^’, ‘z’, ‘0’, ‘1’, ‘\n’, ‘\’’, ‘\0’

Each character has a code: ASCII code

 ‘A’: 65; ‘a’: 97; ‘1’: 49; ‘2’: 50; ‘\0’ : 0

Character vs. Integer

 ‘1’ != 1 ; ‘2’ != 2
 ‘1’ == 49 But 1 == 1

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Effect of Value Types
The type of values have the same effect
of the type of variables
 It determines the “operations” that work on
the values Integer + and =
Performed by ALU
E.g.
 int z; z = 10 + 20;
 float c; c = 1.1 + 2.2;

Float + and =
Performed by FPU

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Values: Initialization
int i = 20;
int j = 0x20FE, k = 90;
int i, j = 40;
char c1 = 'a', c2 = '0';
bool b1 = true;
float f1 = 50e4;
double d = 50e-8;

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Values: From memory to memory
int i, j = 20;
i = j; // i = 20

double d = 65536; // d = 65536.0

double b = d; // b = 65536.0

d = b = i = j = 0;
// j = 0, i = 0, b = 0.0, d = 0.0

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Basic Input Output
To read something: scanf
Integer: scanf("%d", &int_variable);
Float: scanf("%f", &float_variable);
Double: scanf("%lf", &double_variable);

To print something: printf

Integer: printf("%d", int_variable);
Float: printf("%f", float_variable);
Message: printf("message");

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What We Will Learn
What is the C
Variables
 Types

Values
Casting
Constants & Definition

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Casting
What is the casting?
 When the type of variable and value are not the
same
 Example: Assigning double value to integer
variable

It is not a syntax error in C (only warning)

 But can cause runtime errors

It is useful (in special situations)

 But we should be very very careful

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Implicit casting
Implicit (‫)ضمني‬
 We don’t say it
 But we do it

char f2 = 50e6; /* cast from double to char */

int i = 98.01; /* cast from double to int */

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Explicit casting
Explicit (‫)صريح‬
 We say it
 And we do it

int i = (int) 98.1; /* cast from double to int */

char c = (char) 90; /* cast from int to char */

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Casting effects
Casting from small types to large types
 There is not any problem
 No loss of data

int i;
short s;
float f;
double d;
s = 'A'; // s = 65
i = 'B'; // i = 66
f = 4566; // f = 4566.0
d = 5666; // d = 5666.0
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Casting effects (cont’d)
Casting from large types to small types
 Data loss is possible
 Depends on the values

float f = 65536; // 65536.0

double d = 65536; // 65536.0
short s = 720; // 720

char c = (char) 65536; // c = 0

short s = (short) 65536; // s = 0
int i = 1.22; // i = 1
int j = 1e23; // j = ???

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Casting effects (cont’d)
Casting to Boolean
 If value is zero  false
 If values is not zero  true

bool b2 = 'a', b3 = -9, b4 = 4.5; //true

bool b5 = 0, b6 = false; b7 = '\0'; //false

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What We Will Learn
What is the C
Variables
 Types

Values
Casting
Constants & Definition

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Constant Variables!!!
 Constants
 Do not want to change the value
 Example: pi = 3.14

 We can only initialize a constant variable

 We MUST initialize the constant variables (why?!)

 const is a qualifier
const int STUDENTS = 38;
const long int MAX_GRADE = 20;
int i;
i = MAX_GRADE;
STUDENTS = 39; //ERROR
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Definitions
Another tool to define constants
 Definition is not variable
 We define definition, don’t declare them
 Pre-processor replaces them by their values
before compiling

#define STUDENTS 38
int main(void){
int i;
i = STUDENTS;
STUDENTS = 90; //ERROR! What compiler sees: 38 = 90
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Definitions
#define NAME “Test”

#define AGE (20 / 2)

#define MIN(a,b) (((a)<(b))?(a):(b))

#define MAX(a,b) (((a)>(b))?(a):(b))

#define MYLIB

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Summary
Simple programs in C
Two basics
 Variables
 Types
 Values
 Types

Casting
 The type mismatch

Constant variables & definitions

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Reference
Reading Assignment: Chapter 2 of “C How
to Program”

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