Programming Fundamentals

Lecture # 3

Dr. Shafiq Hussain

Associate Professor & Chairperson
Department of Computer Science

1
 Learning Objectives
• To describe basic syntax of C Programming Language.
• To describe Data types in C Programming Language.
• To describe variables in C Programming Language.
• To describe constants in C Programming Language.

2
 Basic Syntax
Tokens in C:
• A C program consists of various tokens and a token is
either a keyword, an identifier, a constant, a string
literal, or a symbol.

• For example, the following C statement consists of

five tokens:

Dr Shafiq 3
 Basic Syntax (Cont..)
printf("Hello, World! \n");

The individual tokens are:

printf
(
"Hello, World! \n"
)
;

Dr Shafiq 4
 Basic Syntax (Cont..)

Semicolons ;
• In C program, the semicolon is a statement
terminator. That is, each individual statement must be
ended with a semicolon.

• It indicates the end of one logical entity.

• For example, following are two different statements:

• printf("Hello, World! \n"); getch();

Dr Shafiq 5
 Basic Syntax (Cont..)
Comments:
• Comments are like helping text in your C program
and they are ignored by the compiler.

• They start with /* and terminates with the characters

*/ as shown below:

/* my first program in C */

Dr Shafiq 6
 Basic Syntax (Cont..)
Identifiers:
• A C identifier is a name used to identify a variable,
function, or any other user-defined item.

• An identifier starts with a letter A to Z or a to z or an

underscore _ followed by zero or more letters,
underscores, and digits (0 to 9).

Dr Shafiq 7
 Basic Syntax (Cont..)
 Identifiers:
• C does not allow punctuation characters such as @, $, and %
within identifiers.

• C is a case sensitive programming language.

• Manpower and manpower are two different identifiers in C.

• Here are some examples of acceptable identifiers:

mohd zara abc move_name a_123

myname50 _temp j a23b9 retVal
Dr Shafiq 8
 Basic Syntax (Cont..)
Keywords:
• The reserved words in C are keywords.

• These reserved words may not be used as constant or

variable or any other identifier names.

Dr Shafiq 9
auto else long switch

break enum register typedef

case extern return union

char float short unsigned

const for signed void

continue goto sizeof volatile

default If static while

do Int struct _Packed

double     Dr Shafiq   10
 Basic Syntax (Cont..)

Whitespace in C:
• A line containing only whitespace, possibly with a
comment, is known as a blank line, and a C compiler
totally ignores it.

• Whitespace is the term used in C to describe blanks,

tabs, newline characters and comments.

Dr Shafiq 11
 Basic Syntax (Cont..)
Whitespace in C:
• Whitespace separates one part of a statement from
another and enables the compiler to identify where
one element in a statement, such as int, ends and the
next element begins.

Dr Shafiq 12
 Basic Syntax (Cont..)
Whitespace in C:
Therefore, in the following statement:
int age;
There must be at least one whitespace character (usually
a space) between int and age for the compiler to be able
to distinguish them.

Dr Shafiq 13
 Basic Syntax (Cont..)
Whitespace in C:
On the other hand, in the following statement:
fruit = apples + oranges; // get the total fruit
No whitespace characters are necessary between fruit
and =, or between = and apples, although you are free to
include some if you wish for readability purpose.

Dr Shafiq 14
 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.

Dr Shafiq 15
 Data Types (Cont..)
Basic Types:
They are arithmetic types and consists of the two types:
(a) integer types and (b) floating-point types.

Enumerated types:
They are again arithmetic types and they are used to
define variables that can only be assigned certain
discrete integer values throughout the program.

Dr Shafiq 16
 Data Types (Cont..)
The type void:
The type specifier void indicates that no value is
available.

Derived types:
They include (a) Pointer types, (b) Array types, (c)
Structure types, (d) Union types and (e) Function types.

Dr Shafiq 17
 Data Types (Cont..)
• Integer Types
• Floating-Point Types
• The void Type

Dr Shafiq 18
 Variables
• A variable is nothing but a name given to a storage
area that our programs can manipulate.

• Each variable in C has a specific type, which

determines the size and layout of the variable's
memory; the range of values that can be stored within
that memory; and the set of operations that can be
applied to the variable.

Dr Shafiq 19
 Variables (Cont..)
• The name of a variable can be composed of letters,
digits, and the underscore character.

• It must begin with either a letter or an underscore.

Upper and lowercase letters are distinct because C is
case-sensitive.

Dr Shafiq 20
 Variables (Cont..)
Type Description

char Typically a single octet(one byte). This is an integer type.

Int The most natural size of integer for the machine.

float A single-precision floating point value.

double A double-precision floating point value.

void Represents the absenceDr of type.

Shafiq 21
 Variables (Cont..)
Variable Definition in C:
A variable definition means to tell the compiler where
and how much to create the storage for the variable.

A variable definition specifies a data type and contains a

list of one or more variables of that type as follows:

type variable_list;

Dr Shafiq 22
 Variables (Cont..)
Variable Definition in C:

• Here, type must be a valid C data type including char,

w_char, int, float, double, bool or any user-defined
object, etc., and variable_list may consist of one or
more identifier names separated by commas.

Dr Shafiq 23
 Variables (Cont..)
• Variable Definition in C:
Some valid declarations are shown here:
int i, j, k;
char c, ch;
float f, salary;
double d;
• The line int i, j, k; both declares and defines the
variables i, j and k; which instructs the compiler to
create variables named i, j and k of type int.

Dr Shafiq 24
 Variables (Cont..)
Variable Definition in C:
• Variables can be initialized (assigned an initial value)
in their declaration. The initializer consists of an
equal sign followed by a constant expression as
follows:
type variable_name = value;

int d = 3, f = 5;

Dr Shafiq 25
 Variables (Cont..)
• A variable declaration provides assurance to the
compiler that there is one variable existing with the
given type and name so that compiler proceed for
further compilation without needing complete detail
about the variable.

• A variable declaration has its meaning at the time of

compilation only, compiler needs actual variable
declaration at the time of linking of the program.

Dr Shafiq 26
 Variables (Cont..)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>

main ()
{
/* variable definition: */
int a, b;
int c;
float f;

Dr Shafiq 27
 Variables (Cont..)
/* actual initialization */
a = 10;
b = 20;

c = a + b;
printf("value of c : %d \n", c);

f = 70.0/3.0;
printf("value of f : %f \n", f);

getch();
}

Dr Shafiq 28
 Constants
• The constants refer to fixed values that the program
may not alter during its execution. These fixed values
are also called literals.
•  
• Constants can be of any of the basic data types
like an integer constant, a floating constant, a
character constant, or a string literal. There are also
enumeration constants as well.
•  

Dr Shafiq 29
 Constants (Cont..)
• The constants are treated just like regular variables
except that their values cannot be modified after their
definition.

Dr Shafiq 30
 Constants (Cont..)
Defining Constants
There are two simple ways in C to define constants:

• Using #define preprocessor.
• Using const keyword.

Dr Shafiq 31
 Constants (Cont..)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>

#define LENGTH 10
#define WIDTH 5
#define NEWLINE '\n'

int main()
{

int area;

Dr Shafiq 32
 Constants (Cont..)
area = LENGTH * WIDTH;
printf("value of area : %d", area);
printf("%c", NEWLINE);

getch();
}

Dr Shafiq 33
 Constants (Cont..)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>

main()
{
const int LENGTH = 10;
const int WIDTH = 5;
const char NEWLINE = '\n';
int area;

Dr Shafiq 34
 Constants (Cont..)
area = LENGTH * WIDTH;
printf("value of area : %d", area);
printf("%c", NEWLINE);

getch();
}

Dr Shafiq 35
 Questions
Any Question Please?

You can contact me at: [email protected]

Your Query will be answered within one working day.

36
 Further Readings
• C How to Program by Dietel, Chapter 2.

• Lecture Handouts, Introduction to Programming (VU),

37
Thanks

38