K&R Chapter 1

A Tutorial Introduction
Dr. Charles R. Severance
www.cc4e.com
code.cc4e.com (sample code)
online.dr-chuck.com
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Outline of the book
• Chapters 1-4 – Mostly syntax
• Just another programming language
• Arrays, strings and the weird fact that strings are character arrays
• Chapter 5 – Pointers and Arrays
• Chapter 6 – Structures
• Chapter 7 – 8 – Detailed C Features
• The detail we skipped

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Chapter 1
• Sections 1.1 – 1.5 – “Just another programming language”
• Section 1.6 – Arrays
• Static allocation – cannot be resized until Chapter 5 
• Section 1.7 – 1.8 – Functions and Parameters
• Call by value is simple – call by reference is in Chapter 5 
• Section 1.9 – Character Arrays
• This is important because there is no string object in C
• Section 1.10 – Variable scoping between functions
Character Arrays
• We must carefully understand the “size” of the character array and
not exceed it – in C nothing is “auto-extended”
#include <stdio.h>
x = "" int main() {
for i in range(1000) : char x[10];
x += '*' int i;
print(x)
for(i=0; i<1000; i++ ) x[i] = '*';
$ python3 cc_01_01.py printf("%s\n",x);
*********…*********** }

$ a.out
Segmentation fault: 11

kr_01_01.c
String / Character Constants
• Languages like PHP, Python, and #include <stdio.h>
int main() {
JavaScript treat single and double char x[3] = "Hi";
char y[3] = { 'H', 'i' };
quotes nearly the same. Both create printf("x %s\n", x);
*string* constants. printf("y %s\n", y);
printf("%s\n", "Hi");
• In C single quotes are a character and }
printf("%c%c\n", 'H', 'i');

double quotes are a character array

$ a.out
(neither are a string) x Hi
• In C, a character is a byte – a short y Hi
Hi
(typically 8-bit) integer Hi

kr_01_02.c
Character Sets
• The C char type is just a number – character representations depend
on the character set.
• Modern characters including 😊 are represented in multi-byte
sequences using Unicode and UTF-8 – but in 1978 we used ASCII and
other character sets.
print('A', ord('A')) #include <stdio.h>
print('😊', ord('😊’)) int main()
{
$ python3 kr_01_03.py printf("%c %d\n", 'A', 'A');
A 65 }
😊 128522
$ a.out
A 65

kr_01_03.c
ASCII
• American Standard
Code for Information
Interchange

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII
http://www.catonmat.net/download/ascii-cheat-sheet.png
Terminating a String #include <stdio.h>
int main() {
char x[6];
x[0] = 'H';
• The size of a “string” stored in a C x[1] = 'e';
x[2] = 'l';
array is not the length of the x[3] = 'l';
x[4] = 'o';
array x[5] = '\0';
• C uses a special character ' \0 ' printf("%s\n",x);

that *marks* the string end by x[2] = 'L';

printf("%s\n",x);
convention
x[3] = '\0';
• Character arrays need to allocate printf("%s\n",x);
an extra byte to store the line- }

end character $ a.out

Hello
HeLlo
HeL
kr_01_04.c
String Length
#include <stdio.h>
• In C string “length” must be int main() {
char x[] = "Hello";
computed in a loop that scans int py_len();
for a zero character printf("%s %d\n",x, py_len(x));
}
• There the strlen() function in int py_len(self)
char self[];
string.h computes string length {
int i;
for(i=0; self[i]; i++);
x = 'Hello' return i;
print(x, len(x)) }

$ python3 kr_01_05.py $ a.out

Hello 5 Hello 5

kr_01_05.c
Reverse a String in C
• A beloved / terrible coding interview
question
• Exercise 1-17 in K&R
• Do *not* cheat, do not look for the
answer (1000’s are out there)
• Your struggle is very valuable for you
• The reversal must be done in-place
• Even length strings, odd length strings,
empty strings, single character strings
– think about them all
Summary
• Overview and approach for the book
• Representing ”strings” in C character arrays
• Actually doing your homework because it is good for you
Acknowledgements / Contributions
These slides are Copyright 2022- Charles R. Severance (online.dr-chuck.com) Continue new Contributors and Translators here
as part of www.cc4e.com and made available under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 License. Please maintain this last slide in all copies of the
document to comply with the attribution requirements of the license. If you
make a change, feel free to add your name and organization to the list of
contributors on this page as you republish the materials.

Initial Development: Charles Severance, University of Michigan School of

Information

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