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Programming Fundamentals: Lecture # 4 Nauman Riaz Chaudhry

This document contains lecture notes on programming fundamentals from CS 102. It discusses bits, bytes, and computer memory being organized into cells that are each 8 bits (a byte) in size. It introduces variables as reserved locations in memory that have a name, type, and can store data. It covers declaring variables, valid variable names, initializing variable values through keyboard input using scanf and assignment statements, and printing variable values using printf.

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65 views14 pages

Programming Fundamentals: Lecture # 4 Nauman Riaz Chaudhry

This document contains lecture notes on programming fundamentals from CS 102. It discusses bits, bytes, and computer memory being organized into cells that are each 8 bits (a byte) in size. It introduces variables as reserved locations in memory that have a name, type, and can store data. It covers declaring variables, valid variable names, initializing variable values through keyboard input using scanf and assignment statements, and printing variable values using printf.

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© © All Rights Reserved
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CS 102

Programming
Fundamentals

Lecture # 4
Nauman Riaz Chaudhry
[email protected]
[email protected]

1
Course Notes
 http://www.its.strath.ac.uk/courses/c/

2
Bits, bytes and memory
 Your computer's memory can
0

Address   
be seen as a sequence of cells.
 Each cell is 8 bits (one byte) 1
large. Data is stored by setting 2
these bits to 1s and 0s. stored
3
 Each cell has an address. You bytes
4
don't need to know (or care to
know) what this address is. 5
Your system uses the address
to locate the data stored there.

3
Variables
 We need to be able to store data in memory, during
the execution of our program.
 We also need to be able to access and even modify
this data.
 Solution : variables
 A variable is a reserved location in memory that
 has a name
 has an associated type (for example, integer)
 holds data which can be modified

4
Variables
 In order to use a variable in our program we must
first declare it.
 HOW?
 A declaration statement has the format:
type variable_name ;
 type : what kind of data will be stored in that location
(integer? character? floating point?)
 variable_name : what is the name of the variable?
 semi-colon : this is a statement!
 WHERE?
 At the beginning of a function, right after the opening brace.

5
Variable names
 In C, variable names are built from
 the letters of the alphabet
 the digits 0 through 9
 the underscore

 A variable name
must start with a letter or an underscore
 A variable name
must not be the same as a reserved word
used by the C language.
 Only the first 31 characters of a variable name are
significant. The rest are ignored.
6
Variable names
 Selecting good variable names is important for
program readability.

 A variable name must be descriptive of the data that


will be stored in the variable.

 It must not be too long.

 It must not be a single character (there is one


allowed exception to this rule, which we will talk
about later)
7
Variable names
 Good, legal variable names:
totalArea temp_in_F
counter1 isEmpty
num_trees pNuts
 Legal, but bad variable names:
l11 (is it L11, L1L, LL1, or LLL?)
x (what does it mean?)
maximum_number_of_students_in_my_class
a23456789_123456789_123456789_12345678
 Illegal variable names:
$product main not-this
total% 3rd
8
Variable types
 We've already seen a type, int, which is used for
integers (more types coming up...)
 Here's a sample program that declares a variable that
will hold an integer:
/* program that demonstrates a variable declaration. */

#include <stdio.h>

int main () {
int num_students;
return 0;
} 9
Variable values
 After a variable has been declared, its memory location
contains randomly set bits. In other words, it does not
contain valid data.
 The value stored in a variable must be initialized
before we can use it in any computations.
 There are two ways to initialize a variable:
 by reading its value from the keyboard using scanf
 by assigning a value using an assignment statement
(more on that later)

10
Keyboard input: scanf()
 scanf() will scan formatted input from the keyboard.
 It uses special format specifiers that specify the type
of the variable whose value is to be read from the
keyboard.
 To read an integer:
int num_students;
scanf("%d", &num_students);

“Place value into


Formal specifier for this variable”
“read an integer value”
VERY IMPORTANT
special symbol 11
Printing variable values
 printf() will print formatted output to the screen.

 To print a message:
printf("This is a message\n");

 How do we print the value of a variable?


 Answer: Use format specifiers depending on the type
of the variable (similar to scanf)

12
Printing variable values
 To print an integer:

printf("The temperature is %d degrees.", degreesF);

Specifier for “Read value from


“print an integer value” this variable”

IMPORTANT: degreesF MUST be initialized so that it


contains a valid value.
13
Example
/* sample program that demonstrates declaring a variable,
assigning a value to it using scanf and
printing that value using printf */

#include <stdio.h>

int main () {
int num_students;
printf("How many students are there? ");
scanf("%d", &num_students);
printf("There are %d students.\n");
return 0; 14

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