CHAPTER 2

BASICS OF C PROGRAMMING
 HISTORY OF C

• C is a procedural oriented programming language.

• It was developed by Dennis Ritchie in the year 1972 at the Bell laboratories of AT & T
• It was mainly developed as a system programming language to write an operating system.
• The main features of C language include low-level access to memory
• A simple set of keywords,
• C language suitable for system programming like an operating system, compiler
development.
Many later languages have borrowed syntax/features directly or indirectly from C language.
• Like syntax of Java, PHP, JavaScript, and many other languages are mainly based on C
language.
 Structure of a C program
Structure of C program , it is meant that any program can be written in this structure only.

Writing a C program in any other structure will hence lead to a Compilation Error.
Header Files

The first and foremost component is the inclusion of the Header files in a C program.
A header file is a file with extension .h
It contains C function declarations and macro definitions to be shared between
several source files.

Some of C Header files:

• stdio.h – Defines core input and output functions

• stdlib.h – Defines numeric conversion functions, memory allocation
• string.h – Defines string handling functions.
• math.h – defines common mathematical functions.

Syntax to include header files

#include< math.h>
Main()

There must to be starting point from where execution of compiled C program begins.

In C, the execution typically begins with first line of main().

Syntax:
returntype main()
{

Return type may be int or void ( do not return any type of value)
Data Concepts:

Character set

Character set is a set of alphabets, letters and some special characters that are valid in C
language.
Alphabets
Uppercase: A B C ................................... X Y Z
Lowercase: a b c ...................................... x y z

C accepts both lowercase and uppercase alphabets as variables and functions.

Digits
0123456789

Special Characters

Blank space, newline, horizontal tab, carriage, return and form feed.
Special Characters in C Programming

, < > . _

( ) ; $ :

% [ ] # ?

' & { } "

^ ! * / |

- \ ~ +
 C Keywords
Keywords are predefined, reserved words used in programming that have special meanings to the compiler.
Keywords are part of the syntax and they cannot be used as an identifier.

As C is a case sensitive language, all keywords must be written in lowercase.

Here is a list of all keywords allowed in C.

C Keywords
auto double int struct
break else long switch
case enum register typedef
char extern return union
continue for signed void
do if static while
default goto sizeof volatile
const float short unsigned
C Identifiers

Identifier refers to name given to entities such as variables, functions, structures etc.
Identifiers must be unique.
They are created to give a unique name to an entity to identify it during the execution of the program. For example:
1.int money;
2.double accountBalance;
Here, money and accountBalance are identifiers.
Also remember, identifier names must be different from keywords.
You cannot use int as an identifier because int is a keyword.

Rules for naming identifiers

1.A valid identifier can have letters (both uppercase and lowercase letters),
digits and underscores.

2.The first letter of an identifier should be either a letter or an underscore.

3.You cannot use keywords as identifiers.

4.There is no rule on how long an identifier can be.
5. In some compiler it supports upto 31 characters.
Variables
In programming, a variable is a container (storage area) to hold data.
To indicate the storage area, each variable should be given a unique name (identifier).
Variable names are just the symbolic representation of a memory location. For example:
int playerScore = 95;
Here, playerScore is a variable of int type. Here, the variable is assigned an integer value 95.
The value of a variable can be changed, hence the name variable.
char ch = 'a';
// some code
ch = 'l';
Rules for naming a variable
1. A variable name can have only letters (both uppercase and lowercase letters), digits and underscore.
2. The first letter of a variable should be either a letter or an underscore.
3. There is no rule on how long a variable name (identifier) can be. However, you may run into
problems in some compilers if the variable name is longer than 31 characters.
Note: You should always try to give meaningful names to variables. For example: firstName is a better
variable name than fn.
C is a strongly typed language. This means that the variable type cannot be changed once it is declared.
For example:
int number = 5; // integer variable
number = 5.5; // error
double number; // error

Here, the type of number variable is int. You cannot assign a floating-point (decimal) value 5.5 to this
variable. Also, you cannot redefine the data type of the variable to double. By the way, to store the
decimal values in C, you need to declare its type to either double or float.
Constants
If you want to define a variable whose value cannot be changed,
you can use the const keyword. This will create a constant. For
example,
const double PI = 3.14;
Notice, we have added keyword const.
Here, PI is a symbolic constant; its value cannot be changed.
const double PI = 3.14;
PI = 2.9; //Error
 Data Types in C
Type Size (bytes) Format Specifier
int at least 2, usually 4 %d
char 1 %c
float 4 %f
double 8 %lf
short int 2 usually %hd
unsigned int at least 2, usually 4 %u
long int at least 4, usually 8 %li
long long int at least 8 %lli
unsigned long int at least 4 %lu
unsigned long
at least 8 %llu
long int
signed char 1 %c
unsigned char 1 %c
long double at least 10, usually 12 or 16 %Lf
int
Integers are whole numbers that can have both zero, positive and negative values but
no decimal values. For example, 0, -5, 10
We can use int for declaring an integer variable.
int id;
Here, id is a variable of type integer.
You can declare multiple variables at once in C programming. For example,
int id, age;
float and double
float and double are used to hold real numbers.
float salary;
double price;
In C, floating-point numbers can also be represented in exponential. For example,
float normalizationFactor = 22.442e2;
What's the difference between float and double?
The size of float (single precision float data type) is 4 bytes. And the size of double
(double precision float data type) is 8 bytes.
char
Keyword char is used for declaring character type variables. For example,
char test = 'h';
The size of the character variable is 1 byte.

short and long

If you need to use a large number, you can use a type specifier long. Here's
how:
long a;
long long b;
long double c;
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
short a;
long b;
long long c;
long double d;

printf("size of short = %d bytes\n", sizeof(a));

printf("size of long = %d bytes\n", sizeof(b));
printf("size of long long = %d bytes\n", sizeof(c));
printf("size of long double= %d bytes\n", sizeof(d));
return 0;
}
signed and unsigned
In C, signed and unsigned are type modifiers. You can alter the data storage of a data type by
using them. For example,
unsigned int x;
int y;
Here, the variable x can hold only zero and positive values because we have used the unsigned
modifier.
Considering the size of int is 4 bytes, variable y can hold values from -231 to 231-1, whereas
variable x can hold values from 0 to 232-1.
C Arithmetic Operators

An arithmetic operator performs mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction,

multiplication, division etc on numerical values (constants and variables).

Operator Meaning of Operator

+ addition or unary plus

- subtraction or unary minus

* multiplication

/ division
remainder after division (modulo
%
division)
C Increment and Decrement Operators
C programming has two operators increment ++ and decrement -- to change the value of an
operand (constant or variable) by 1.
Increment ++ increases the value by 1 whereas decrement -- decreases the value by 1. These two
operators are unary operators, meaning they only operate on a single operand.
1. #include <stdio.h>
2. int main()
3. { int a = 10, b = 100;
4. float c = 10.5, d = 100.5;
5. printf("++a = %d \n", ++a);
6. printf("--b = %d \n", --b);
7. printf("++c = %f \n", ++c);
8. printf("--d = %f \n", --d);
9. return 0;}
C Assignment Operators
An assignment operator is used for assigning a value to a variable.
The most common assignment operator is =

Operator Example Same as

= a=b a=b
+= a += b a = a+b
-= a -= b a = a-b
*= a *= b a = a*b
/= a /= b a = a/b
%= a %= b a = a%b
#include <stdio.h>
int main() { int a = 5, c;
c = a;
printf("c = %d\n", c);
c += a;
printf("c = %d\n", c);
c -= a; // c is 5
printf("c = %d\n", c);
c *= a; // c is 25
printf("c = %d\n", c);
c /= a; // c is 5
printf("c = %d\n", c);
c %= a; // c = 0
printf("c = %d\n", c); return 0;}
C Relational Operators
A relational operator checks the relationship between two operands.
Relational operators are used in decision making and loops.

Operator Meaning of Operator Example

== Equal to 5 == 3 is evaluated to 0
> Greater than 5 > 3 is evaluated to 1
< Less than 5 < 3 is evaluated to 0
!= Not equal to 5 != 3 is evaluated to 1
>= Greater than or equal to 5 >= 3 is evaluated to 1
<= Less than or equal to 5 <= 3 is evaluated to 0
C Logical Operators
An expression containing logical operator returns either 0 or 1 depending upon whether
expression results true or false.
Logical operators are commonly used in decision making in C programming.

Operator Meaning Example

If c = 5 and d = 2 then,
Logical AND. True only if
&& expression ((c==5) &&
all operands are true
(d>5)) equals to 0.
If c = 5 and d = 2 then,
Logical OR. True only if
|| expression ((c==5) || (d>5))
either one operand is true
equals to 1.
Logical NOT. True only if If c = 5 then, expression !
!
the operand is 0 (c==5) equals to 0.
C Bitwise Operators
During computation, mathematical operations like: addition, subtraction, multiplication,
division, etc are converted to bit-level which makes processing faster and saves power.
Bitwise operators are used in C programming to perform bit-level operations.

Operators Meaning of operators

& Bitwise AND

| Bitwise OR
^ Bitwise exclusive OR
~ Bitwise complement
<< Shift left
>> Shift right
Definition Type casting

The conversion of one data type to another is known as type casting.

The values are changed for the respective calculation only,
not for any permanent effect in a program.

For example, x=int (7.5) means 7.5 is converted to integer by truncating it i.e. 7
b=(int) 22.7/(int) 5.3 means 22.7 will be converted to 22

We can convert type of value explicitly as:

(data type) expression
 #include<stdio.h>
void main()
{ int sum = 17, count = 5;
double mean;
mean = (double) sum / count;
printf("Value of mean : %f\n", mean );
getch();
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result −
Value of mean : 3.400000
 #include <stdio.h>
main()
{
int i = 17;
char c = 'c'; /* ascii value is 99 */
int sum;
sum = i + c;
printf("Value of sum : %d\n", sum );
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result −
Value of sum : 116
Here, the value of sum is 116 because the compiler is doing integer promotion
 Conditional or Ternary Operator

Conditional operator is also known as the Ternary Operator.

This operator has three phase.
Exp1 ? Exp2 : Exp3;
where Exp1, Exp2, and Exp3 are expressions.
Notice the use and placement of the colon.
Exp1 is True . If it is true, then Exp2 is executed .
If Exp1 is false, then Exp3 is executed.
The ? is called a ternary operator because it requires three operands and can be
used to replace if-else statements, which have the following form
For example, consider the following code
if(y < 10)
{
var = 30;
}
else
{
var = 40;
}

Above code can be rewritten like this

var = (y < 10) ? 30 : 40;
#include <iostream.h>
void main ()
{

int x, y = 10;
x = (y < 10) ? 30 : 40;
cout << "value of x: " << x << endl;
getch();
}
 #include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int a = 12, b = 25;
printf("Output = %d", a&b);
return 0;
}

Output =8