CHAPTER

1
Introduction to C Language

A Brief History of C

C is a general-purpose language which has been closely associated with the UNIX operating
system for which it was developed - since the system and most of the programs that run it are
written in C.

Many of the important ideas of C stem from the language BCPL, developed by Martin Richards.
The influence of BCPL on C proceeded indirectly through the language B, which was written by
Ken Thompson in 1970 at Bell Labs, for the first UNIX system on a DEC PDP-
7. BCPL and B are "type less" languages whereas C provides a variety of data types.

In 1972 Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs writes C and in 1978 the publication of The C Programming
Language by Kernighan & Ritchie caused a revolution in the computing world.

In 1983, the American National Standards

Did You Know?
Institute (ANSI) established a committee to
provide a modern, comprehensive definition of C. Basic Combined Programming
The resulting definition, the ANSI standard, or Language, BCPL is a programming
"ANSI C", was completed late 1988. language developed in 1966 by Martin
Richards of the University of
Cambridge. It quickly became popular,
Uses of C
largely because of its high portability.
BCPL is the successor to the CPL
C was initially used for system development
programming language, the first
work, in particular the programs that make-up the language to print the infamous "Hello
operating system. Why use C? Mainly because it World!" test message.
produces code that runs nearly as fast as code Combined Programming
written in assembly language. Some examples of Language, CPL is a programming
the use of C might be: language developed in the early 1960s
by the University of Cambridge and the
University of London. Later this
1. Operating Systems
programming language was replaced
2. Language Compilers
with BCPL.
3. Assemblers
4. Text Editors
5. Print Spoolers
6. Network Drivers
7. Modern Programs
8. Data Bases
9. Language Interpreters
10. Utilities
The C Character Set:

C does not use, nor requires the use of, every character found on a modern computer keyboard.
The only characters required by the C Programming Language are as follows:

1. Letter: A–Z or a -z
2. Digits: 0-9
3. Special characters: ~ . , : ; ' $ "# % & ! _ {} [] () | + - / \ * =

The use of most of this set of characters will be discussed throughout the course.

Data types in C Language

Data types specify how we enter data into our programs and what type of data we enter. C
language has some predefined set of data types to handle various kinds of data that we can use in
our program. These data types have different storage capacities.
C language supports 2 different type of data types:

1. Primary data types:

These are fundamental data types in C namely integer(int), floating point(float),

character(char) and void.

2. Derived data types:

Derived data types are nothing but primary datatypes but a little twisted or grouped together
like array, stucture, union and pointer.
Data type determines the type of data a variable will hold. If a variable x is declared as int. it
means x can hold only integer values. Every variable which is used in the program must be
declared as what data-type it is.
Integer type
Integers are used to store whole numbers.

Floating point type

Floating types are used to store real numbers.

Character type
Character types are used to store characters value.

Void type
void type means no value. This is usually used to specify the type of functions which returns
nothing. We will get acquainted to this data type as we start learning more advanced topics in C
language, like functions, pointers etc.

Operators

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:

Operators in C programming

1. Arithmetic Operators
2. Increment and Decrement Operators
3. Assignment Operators
4. Relational Operators
5. Logical Operators
Arithmetic Operators

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

multiplication on numerical values (constants and variables).

Operator Meaning of Operator

+ addition or unary plus

Operator Meaning of Operator

- subtraction or unary minus

* multiplication

/ division

% remainder after division( modulo division)

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.

C Assignment Operators

An assignment operator is used for assigning a value to a variable. The most common
assignment operator is =

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

Operator Meaning of Operator Example

!= 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

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 of Operator Example

Logial AND. True only if all If c = 5 and d = 2 then, expression ((c == 5)

&&
operands are true && (d > 5)) equals to 0.

Logical OR. True only if either If c = 5 and d = 2 then, expression ((c == 5) ||

||
one operand is true (d > 5)) equals to 1.

Logical NOT. True only if the

! If c = 5 then, expression ! (c == 5) equals to 0.
operand is 0

The Printf() and Scanf() Functions in C Language

 printf() and scanf() functions are inbuilt library functions in C programming language which
are available in C library by default. These functions are declared and related macros are
defined in “stdio.h” which is a header file in C language.
 We have to include “stdio.h” file as shown in below C program to make use of these printf()
and scanf() library functions in C language.

1. PRINTF() FUNCTION IN C LANGUAGE:

 In C programming language, printf() function is used to print the “character, string, float,
integer, octal and hexadecimal values” onto the output screen.
 We use printf() function with %d format specifier to display the value of an integer variable.
  Similarly %c is used to display character, %f for float variable, %s for string
variable, %lf for double and %x for hexadecimal variable.
 To generate a newline,we use “\n” in C printf() statement.

Note:
 C language is case sensitive. For example, printf() and scanf() are different
from Printf() and Scanf(). All characters in printf() and scanf() functions
must be in lower case.

EXAMPLE PROGRAM FOR C PRINTF() FUNCTION:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() OUTPUT:

{ String is fresh2refresh.com
char ch = 'A';
char str[20] = "fresh2refresh.com";
float flt = 10.234;
int no = 150;
double dbl = 20.123456;
printf("Character is %c \n", ch);
printf("String is %s \n" , str);
printf("Float value is %f \n", flt);
printf("Integer value is %d\n" , no);
printf("Double value is %lf \n", dbl);
printf("Octal value is %o \n", no);
printf("Hexadecimal value is %x \n", no);
Character is A
Float value is 10.234000
Integer value is 150
Double value is 20.123456
Octal value is 226
Hexadecimal value is 96
_____________________________________________
You can see the output with the same data which are placed
within the double quotes of printf statement in the program
except
• %d got replaced by value of an integer variable (no),
• %c got replaced by value of a character variable (ch),
• %f got replaced by value of a float variable (flt),
• %lf got replaced by value of a double variable (dbl),
• %s got replaced by value of a string variable (str),
• %o got replaced by a octal value corresponding to
integer variable (no),
• %x got replaced by a hexadecimal value
corresponding to integer variable
• \n got replaced by a newline.

return 0;

2. SCANF() FUNCTION IN C LANGUAGE:

• In C programming language, scanf() function is used to read character, string, numeric

data from keyboard
 • Consider below example program where user enters a character. This value is assigned to
the variable “ch” and then displayed.

• Then, user enters a string and this value is assigned to the variable “str” and then
displayed.

EXAMPLE PROGRAM FOR PRINTF() AND SCANF() FUNCTIONS IN C

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE:

#include <stdio.h>
OUTPUT:
int main()
Enter any character
{
a
char ch; Entered character is a
Enter any string ( upto 100 character )
char str[100]; hi
Entered string is hi
printf("Enter any character \n");
• The format specifier %d is used in
scanf("%c", &ch);
scanf() statement. So that, the value entered
printf("Entered character is %c \n", ch); is received as an integer and %s for string.
• Ampersand is used before variable name
printf("Enter any string ( upto 100 character ) \n"); “ch” in scanf() statement as &ch.
• It is just like in a pointer which is used
scanf("%s", &str); to point to the variable. For more
information about how pointer works, please
printf("Entered string is %s \n", str); click here.

KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER IN C PRINTF() AND SCANF():

1. printf() is used to display the output and scanf() is used to read the inputs.
2. printf() and scanf() functions are declared in “stdio.h” header file in C library.
All syntax in C language including printf() and scanf() functions are case sensitive.