Basics of ‘C’
By Anshika
Introduction of ‘C’
• C is a general purpose programming language developed by
Dennis Ritchie in at Bell Laboratories in 1972.
• C is High level, general purpose structured programming
language .Instructions of C consist of terms that are
very closely same to algebraic expressions , consisting
of certain English keywords such as if ,else , for, do ,
while.
• In 1983, ANSI established a committee to develop a
standard specification for C. The ANSI C standard was
published in 1989, known as C89 or C90.
• This allows C to be used for system programming as
well as for
applications programming.
The Character set of ‘C
• C language consist of some characters set, numbers and
some special symbols. The character set of C consist of all
the alphabets of English language. C consist of Alphabets a
to z, A to Z ,Numeric 0,1 to 9,
Special Symbols {,},[,],?,+,-,*,/,%,!,;,and more.
• The words formed from the character set are building
blocks of C and are sometimes known as tokens.
• These tokens represent the individual entity of
language. The following different types of token are
used in C.
1) Identifiers 2)Keywords 3)Constants
4) Operators 5)Punctuation Symbols
Identifiers
• A 'C' program consist of two types of elements , user defined
and system defined. Identifiers is nothing but a name given to
these elements.
• An identifier is a word used by a programmer to name a
variable , function, or label.
• identifiers consist of letters and digits, in any order, except
that the first character or label.
• Identifiers consist of letters and digits if any order , except that
the first character must be letter.
• Both Upper and lowercase letters can be used.
Keywords
• Keywords are nothing but auto double int struct
system defined identifiers.
• Keywords are reserved break else long switch
words of the language.
case enum register typedef
• They have specific meaning
in the language and cannot char extern return union
be used by the programmer
as variable or constant const float short unsigned
names
• C is case sensitive, it continue for signed void
means these must be used
default goto sizeof volatile
as it is
• 32 Keywords in C do if static while
Programming
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.
• 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 [Link] are following basic
variable types −
• Type Description
• char Typically a single octet(one byte).
• int The natural size of integer for the machine.
• float A single-precision floating point value.
• double A double-precision floating point value.
• void Represents the absence of type.
Constants
• A constant is a value or an identifier whose value cannot be
altered in a program. For example: 1, 2.5,
• As mentioned, an identifier also can be defined as a constant.
eg. const double PI = 3.14
• Here, PI is a constant. Basically what it means is that, PI and
3.14 is same for this program.
Integer constants
• A integer constant is a numeric constant (associated with
number) without any fractional or exponential part. There are
three types of integer constants in C programming:
• decimal constant(base 10)
• octal constant(base 8)
• hexadecimal constant(base 16)
Constants
Floating-point constants
• A floating point constant is a numeric constant that has either
a fractional form or an exponent form. For example:
2.0,0.0000234,-0.22E-5
Character constants
• A character constant is a constant which uses single
quotation around characters. For example: 'a', 'l', 'm', 'F'
String constants
• String constants are the constants which are enclosed in a
pair of double-quote marks. For example: "good" ,"x","Earth is
round\n"
Escape Sequences
• Sometimes, it is necessary to use characters which cannot
be typed or has special meaning in C programming. For
example: newline(enter), tab, question mark etc. In order to
use these characters, escape sequence is used.
• For example: \n is used for newline. The backslash ( \ )
causes "escape" from the normal way the characters are
interpreted by the [Link]
Sequences Character
• \b Backspace
• \f Form feed
• \n Newline
• \r Return
• \t Horizontal tab
• \0 Null character
Escape Sequences
• \v Vertical tab
• \\ Backslash
• \' Single quotation mark
• \" Double quotation mark
• \? Question mark
Operators in C:An operator is a symbol which operates
on a value or a variable. For example: + is an operator to
perform addition.
• C programming has wide range of operators to perform
various operations. For better understanding of operators,
these operators can be classified as:
• Arithmetic Operators
• Increment and Decrement Operators
• Assignment Operators
• Relational Operators
• Logical Operators
• Conditional Operators
• Bitwise Operators
• Special Operators
Arithmetic Operator
• Operator Meaning of Operator
• + addition or unary plus
• - subtraction or unary minus
• * multiplication
• / division
• % remainder after
division( modulo division)
Increment and Decrement Operators
1. C programming has two operators increment ++ and
decrement -- to change the value of an operand (constant or
variable) by 1.
2. Increment ++ increases the value by 1 whereas decrement
-- decreases the value by 1.
3. These two operators are unary operators, meaning they only
operate on a single operand.
eg . int a=10, b=100
a++ = 11
b-- = 99
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
C Relational Operators
• A relational operator checks the relationship between two
operands. If the relation is true, it returns 1; if the relation is
false, it returns value 0.
• Relational operators are used in decision making and loops.
Operator Meaning of Operator Example
• == Equal to 5 == 3 returns 0
• > Greater than 5 > 3 returns 1
• < Less than 5 < 3 returns 0
• != Not equal to 5 != 3 returns 1
• >= Greater than or equal to 5 >= 3 returns 1
• <= Less than or equal to 5 <= 3 return 0
Thank You
