Mythili Vutukuru

IIT Bombay

Reference: “C How to Program”, Deitel and Deitel, 8th Edition, Chapters 1&2
 Computer hardware is the physical machinery of a computer
 CPU runs instructions on data (e.g., add two numbers), ~109 instructions per second
 Main memory or Random Access Memory (RAM) stores instructions and user data in “volatile”
memory (erased when power is off)
 Hard disk stores user files persistently (retained even when power is off)
 Input/Output devices: keyboard, mouse, monitor, network card, …

 Computer software makes hardware do useful things

 Program: Sequence of instructions written by a user to execute a specific task on user data
 Example: A program to take input of two numbers, add them, print output
 Example: A program to fetch a web page from Internet, or play a video

 Software instructions/data reside in main memory and run on CPU

 Bit: 0 or 1, basic unit of information
 Byte: Collection of 8 bytes, unit of storage
of information in computers
 Data types: different types of data stored
by users
 Character (1 byte): decimal digits (0–9),
letters (A–Z and a–z), and special symbols
(e.g., $, @, %, &, *, +, ….)
 String of characters
 Integer (4 bytes)
 Floating point numbers

 Data organized as fields, records, files

 Modern computers have few GB RAM and few TB hard disk storage
 Computer program = user data + instructions to operate on the data
 Example: marks of student, and instructions to add marks to calculate total

 Programming language = language in which programs are written by a user

 Machine language = language that computer can understand
 Consists of series of bits, hard for humans to write programs in machine language

 High-level language = language that humans can easily write programs in

 Example: use statements like “sum = number1 + number2”
 Example: C, C++, Java

 But how does a computer understand a program written in a high-level language?

 Compiler translates high-level language code to machine code
 User writes a program (welcome.c) using any text editor, saves file on hard disk
 User compiles program (gcc welcome.c) using compiler
 Compiler performs many steps, prints any errors to screen

 Compiler generates executable (machine code) which is saved on disk

 Default name of executable file is “a.out”

 User runs program (machine code) by typing “./a.out” at terminal

 Program instructions and data loaded into main memory
 CPU runs instructions of the program one by one, and generates output
 Real life programs do more complex, useful work
 Applications such as Code Blocks allow you to write, build (compile) and run
program from the same interface
 Works across Windows and Linux

 The program picks a number between 1 and 1000, asks user to guess it
 User types a number via the keyboard as input to the program
 Program checks if number if higher or lower than the number is picked, and
conveys feedback to user
 User can guess again based on this feedback, until he gets it right
 Editor allows users to write program code or any other text
 Compiler translates high level language code to machine format that computer can
understand
 Terminal is a place to give instructions to computer to open editor, compile
program, run program
 IDE (integrated development environment) allows you to write and run code from
the same interface
 Standard output is where users can see output of their program (screen)
 Standard input is where users can give inputs to running program (keyboard)
 Standard C library provides “functions” (shortcuts) that user can call to read input
or print output to screen
 Multiple statements in a program, keywords in dark blue

Comments

Include standard library functions to refer to existing functions

Main part of any program

Call library function to print to standard output
Statements end with ;
Opening and closing braces { } to group statements

What you see on screen when you compile and run the program
The usage of \n causes new line
Can insert multiple new lines in one print statement