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Brief Summary of C Language: 1 Simplest Kind of Program

This document provides a brief summary of the C programming language. It discusses basic C program structure, declaring variables, input/output, for loops, constants, character strings, command line arguments, and naming conventions for variables. The key points are: C uses #include to import headers, main() as the program entry point, semicolons to terminate statements, and curly braces to group blocks of code. It supports basic data types like int and double, arrays, character strings, mathematical and relational operators, and control flow with for loops. Input/output uses printf and scanf with format specifiers, and command line arguments are accessed through argc and argv.

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28 views

Brief Summary of C Language: 1 Simplest Kind of Program

This document provides a brief summary of the C programming language. It discusses basic C program structure, declaring variables, input/output, for loops, constants, character strings, command line arguments, and naming conventions for variables. The key points are: C uses #include to import headers, main() as the program entry point, semicolons to terminate statements, and curly braces to group blocks of code. It supports basic data types like int and double, arrays, character strings, mathematical and relational operators, and control flow with for loops. Input/output uses printf and scanf with format specifiers, and command line arguments are accessed through argc and argv.

Uploaded by

CB93
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Brief summary of C language

D Colm O unlaing October 10, 2012

1 Simplest kind of program


#include <stdio.h> /* essential for input/output */ /* * Comments as shown here. Can be on several lines. * Asterisks on left unnecessary: for a neat appearance. * End comment with asterisk and forward slash. * Double slash for single-line comments, C++ style: // */ main() { /* variables declared */ /* statements: i/o, arithmetic */ /* semicolons at end of each declaration and each statement */ /* indent for readability: to show program structure */ }

2 Declaring variables
Here are some examples. char a; int b, c; double double_precision_variable_001; /* variable with a long name */ double d[100]; /* array of doubles */

int e[10][10]; /* two-dimensional array of ints */ char * string; /* declares an address --- advanced. */

3 Input/output
printf( format, item, ... , item ); Formats: %d, %s, %c, %f, %e, %g integer, string, oating, scientic, general. More about this later. Special characters. \n newline (carriage return), \t tab, %% double percent means single percent, \" escaped quotes means quotes, \0 null character is used to mark the end of a character string. Input by command-line arguments Input by scanf( format, address, ... , address ); scanf() returns a value, the number of items read. Useful for detecting end-of-data. Ctrl-D from the terminal signals end-of-data. Address of x is &x Related functions and routines: fprintf, fscanf, fgets, snprintf.

4 More about format


Field width can be included, such as %4d, %10s, etcetera. If the item is too short, it is right-justied to t. A minus-sign causes left justication. It has nothing to do with the sign of numbers. With int items, a zero causes padding with zeroes rather than blanks. For example, printf("%06d\n", 7) produces 000007 With formats %f, %e, %g, a decimal point gives precision. Thus 2

printf("%6.3f\n", 7) produces 3 decimal places in a eld width of 6: 7.000

5 For loops
for ( i = low; i < too_high; ++ i ) { <statements> } NOTE Right curly bracket } marks end of group of statements. There must be a semicolon before } (unless empty), and there should not be a semicolon immediately after. This is one of the peculiarities of C. The above description shows a for-loop as it is most frequently used. In full generality, a for-loop looks like for ( <do first>; <(while) still going>; <do between reps> ) { <statements> } Relation symbols Mathematical form C form < < <= = == >= > > = !=

6 Constants and character strings


Number constants are as you would expect, such as 123 or -123.456 A character constant is enclosed in single quotes, like 3

or

\t

or

\n

or

\0

meaning a, tab, newline, and null character. A character string is a sequence of characters stored in memory. It must be terminated with a null character. A string constant is enclosed in double quotes: "hello\n", "123\t455\n", "\"hello\"" Notice \": the backslash is an escape character so the double quote is taken as a character, not enclosing the character string.

7 Command line input


main ( int argc, char * argv [] ) argc is the number of command-line arguments, beginning the count at 0. argv[0] is a character string, actually the name of the program (such as a.out). argv[1], argv[2], ... , argv[ argc - 1 ] are the rst, second, . . . , command-line arguments. Include #include <stdlib.h> to gain access to the functions atoi() and atof() functions. Each argument is a character string, and atoi() can convert it to integer, as in n = atoi ( argv[ 1 ] ); atof() converts character strings to double.

8 Naming variables
Any mixed string of letters, digits, and underscores, not beginning with a digit, is an acceptable name. Case sensitive: one should use lowercase letters, reserving uppercase for other things.

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