Theory Questions on C

I. Definitions and Examples of :

1. Low level language vs. high level language
2. Procedural Language
3. Strongly Typed vs. Weakly Typed Language
4. Algorithms and flowchart
5. C tokens
6. Literals
7. Variables and Constants
8. Keywords
9. Escape sequence characters
10. Data types : int, float, char, long, double, short int , along with amount of memory
requirement for each.
11. Specifiers - %d, %f, %lf, %ld, %c, %s, %x
12. Relational Operators
13. Logical Operators
14. Conditional Operators
15. Precedence of operators
16. Conditions in C : if, if… else, switch case
17. Loops in C : while, for, do while
18. Storage classes in C: Auto, register, static and extern.
19. Array --- Memory diagram of an integer and float array
20. 2-D array, n-D array --- Memory diagram
21. Pointers
22. Pointers and array --- notations like *(arr + i) etc
23. Functions – library functions and user – defined functions
24. Pass by value vs. Pass by reference
25. Return values from a function
26. Header files
27. C pre-processor directives
28. Main function
 29. Data type: void
30. Macros in C
31. Strings.
32. String terminator.
33. String library functions.
34. Purpose of functions gets, puts, getch, getche, putchar etc.
35. Structure
36. Self – referential structure
37. Array of structure and array within structure.
38. Nested structure
39. Pointer to structure
40. Enum – enumerated data type
41. Union
42. FILE pointer
43. Modes to open a file.
44. Purpose of file handling functions – fscanf, fprintf, fgetc, fputc, fgets, fputs,
fopen, fclose
45. EOF

II. State the characteristic features of C.

III. Where was C developed and by whom?
IV. What is a compiler?
V. C is called a middle level language. Give reasons.
VI. State two low level and two high level features of C.
VII. What are the three parts of a for-loop?
VIII. Differentiate between while and do-while loop (entry controlled and exit controlled
loop).
IX. What type of ‘if… else’ conditions cannot be implemented with switch case? Justify.
X. Why is ‘break’ included in a ‘switch case’ construct?
XI. What is the purpose of default keyword in a switch case?
XII. State differences between break and continue keyword with example.
XIII. How can you implement an infinite loop using the following loops?
 a. while loop
b. do-while loop
c. for loop
XIV. Give example of a ‘for loop’ that has multiple initialisation, multiple increments and
compound terminal conditions. Explain how it works.
XV. Explain the concepts of actual and formal arguments in a function.
XVI. What do you understand by user defined data type?
XVII. Differentiate between array and structure.
XVIII. Differentiate between union and structure.
XIX. Difference between getch and getche.

Note: Also solve problems on detecting errors in codes and determining outputs