C Programming

Comments in C
If you construct a long program today and try to recall it after a few days, there is every
possibility that you would have forgotten quite a few things and even what the program
does or what a particular name stands for. Comments if included in a program help in
recollection of different names, data values and other parameters.
 

Escape Sequences in C
Escape sequences are basically control characters used for formatting the output.
These are combinations of a backslash and a character in lowercase. We have already
used "\n", which shifts the curser to the next line. Table lists the escape sequences
defined in C language.
 

Features of C

(i) It is a structured high-level language and is highly portable to different platforms.

(ii) C is closest to assembly language and hence it is extremely efficient. Some
programmers call it "high-level assembly language", although it is not a justified
comment.
 

gets() and puts() Functions

We can read a string using the %s conversion specification in the scanf function.
However, it has a limitation that the strings entered cannot contain spaces and tabs. To
overcome this problem, the C standard library provides the gets function. It allows us to
read a line of characters (including spaces and tabs) until the newline character is
entered, i. e., the Enter key is pressed. A call to this function takes the following form:
 

getchar() and putchar()

The standard C library provides several functions and macros for character 1/0. Here
we consider the getchar and putchar macros. As these macros read or write a single
character, they are typically used in a loop to read/write a sequence of characters.
 

What is Header Files in C?

The C standard library provides the executable code and declarations for functionality
provided in it. The executable code for the library is provided in separate files, usually in
the lib directory, in the installation directory of the compiler. The library files in
Turbo C/C++ are named *.LIB, whereas those in the MinGW compiler provided with
Dev-C++ and Code :: Blocks are named lib*. a.
 

What is Basic Language (beginner's all-purpose symbolic instruction code,)?

BASIC stands for beginner's all-purpose symbolic instruction code, and is
a computer programming language that was invented in 1964 at Dartmouth University
by John G Kemeny and Thomas E Kurtz. BASIC has the advantage of English-like
commands that are easier to understand and remember than those of most other
languages. Even so, the latest versions of BASIC can do just about anything
programming languages like C or Pascal can do.

Anatomy of C Program
We have some compiler preprocessor commands. This includes various
#include files. Then comes the main function. Some name can also be given
to the main function. Then, we have the variable declarations used in the
main code. Then we have sub-functions.
 

Procedure to Create a Program in C Programming Language

BY DINESH THAKUR Category: Basic Of C Programming

There are many "languages" like, for example C, Fortran, PASCAL etc., that help us to
convert an algorithm in to something that a computer can understand. We will focus
here only on C programming So. let us start looking at how do we create a "C program".

History of C? Why we use C programming language

Martin Richards developed a high-level computer language called BCPL in the year
1967. The intention was to develop a language for writing an operating system (OS). As
you know an OS is software which controls the various processes in a computer
system. This language was later improved by Ken Thompson and he gave it a new
name B. The basic ideas about some topics such as arrays, etc., which were later
inherited by C were developed in BCPL and B. In those days, the development of
computers was in infancy. One of the serious constraints experienced while developing
the language B was the small computer memory available at that time.

 
What is Libraries file in C
Another component common to C programs is the header file. This
supplies information about the standard library functions. These files all end with the .h
extension and are added to the program using the #include pre-processor directive. All
C compilers use a pre-processor as their first phase of compilation to manipulate the
code of the source file before it is compiled.

What is the importance of header files

The main role of header file is it is used to share information among various files.To put
it brief, if we have several functions say 4 functions named as f1, f2, f3, f4 placed in file
say sample.c and if all the functions want to get accessed each other all must be placed
in the same file sample.c. 

Differentiate Between Keywords and Identifiers

when we said that every language consists of keywords and that these keywords are
only understandable by the people who speak the language.The same is with C;
keywords are special words that have special meaning in the C language and are
reserved by the language. That last sentence has significant meaning, so I will take
about it a little later on.
 

Storage of Signed Integers

To store signed integers, we need to reserve one bit for the sign of the integer. It is usual
convention to use a 0 bit to indicate positive sign and a 1 bit to indicate a negative sign.
 

Pre-Processor Directive in C
Macros are small functions (generally single line functions) which may be dealt with the help of
preprocessor directive #define. Here, we shall discuss only the directive #define which is also used to
define constants. A macro may or may not have parameters. An advantage of using a macro is that if a
program involves a large number of the function calls of a small function the overburden of function calls
can make the program inefficient; in case of macro, the code is substituted wherever the macro occurs.
Thus, a programmer does not have to repeat the code again and again in the source code of the program
while the function call is eliminated. However, a disadvantage of using macro is that data types  are not
included in the macro nor are these checked by the compiler. A few illustrations of macros are given
below.
 
Precision for Characters and Strings in C
The field width and precision setting may be used for characters and strings as well. However, these have
different meaning. See the following code:
 

Explicit Display of + and - Signs in Output in C

In general, the sign is not displayed with positive values. However, if we desire to display the + sign, we
may add it in the control string. If the display is desired to be left justified as well as with+ sign, add + or +
+between the % sign and the conversion character; for example, the following code for integers.
 

Precision Setting in C
Precision is specified by the number of digits after the decimal point for the outputs for float as well as
double numbers. If precision is not specified, it would be according to the default setting in
the computer which is generally 6 digits. The precision may be specified by a period(.) followed by a
positive number equal to the number of digits desired. An illustration is given below.

Type Casting in C
Type casting or type conversion refers to change of type  of variables or pointers or user-defined objects
from one type  to another type. The need for type conversion arises in some operations involving two
operands of different types, or even of same type. The example given below illustrates this concept.
 

C storage class Specifiers

An object is a space in memory with a name or an identifier. The lifetime of an object is the storage
duration of the object in a program, that is, lifetime is the portion of program execution during which the
object exists with a constant address in the program and retains the last stored value. Three types of
storage durations are defined in C, that is, automatic, static, and allocated.