Introduction to c language


What is C

C language is a general purpose and structured pragramming langauge. It is also called as 'Procedure oriented programming language.

C is not specially designed for specific applications areas like COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) or FORTRAN (Formula Translation). It is well suited for business and scietific applications. It has some various features like control structures, looping statements, arrays, macros required for these applications.

The C language has following numorous features as:

  • Portability
  • Flexibility
  • Effectiveness and efficiency
  • Reliability
  • Interactivity

Who discoverd C

C is a programming language developed at AT & T’s Bell Laboratories of USA in 1972. It was designed and written by a man named Dennis Ritchie.

The programming language C was designed to run on a PDP-11 with a UNIX operating system. Although it was originally intended to run under UNIX, there has been a great interest in running it under the MS-DOS operating system on the IBM PC and compatibles. It is an excellent language for this environment because of the simplicity of expression, the compactness of the code, and the wide range of applicability. Also, due to the simplicity and ease of writing a C compiler, it is usually the first high level language available on any new computer, including microcomputers, minicomputers, and mainframes.

Execution of C Program :

C program executes in following 4 (four steps).

C program execution steps
  1. Creating a program :
  2. An editor like notepad or wordpad is used to create a C program. This file contains a source code which consists of executable code. The file should be saved as '*.c' extension only.

  3. Compiling the program :
  4. The next step is to compile the program. The code is compiled by using compiler. Compiler converts executable code to binary code i.e. object code.

  5. Linking a program to library :
  6. The object code of a program is linked with libraries that are needed for execution of a program. The linker is used to link the program with libraries. It creates a file with '*.exe' extension.

  7. Execution of program :
  8. The final executable file is then run by dos command prompt or by any other software.


WHAT IS THE ANSI-C STANDARD?

When it became evident that the C programming language was becoming a very popular language available on a wide range of computers, a group of concerned individuals met to propose a standard set of rules for the use of the C programming language. The group represented all sectors of the software industry and after many meetings, and many preliminary drafts, they finally wrote an acceptable standard for the C language. It has been accepted by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and by the International Standards Organization (ISO).



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