GNG1106

Fundamentals of Engineering Computation

Lecture 3

Instructor: Mohammad Al Ridhawi

University of Ottawa

Winter 2025

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In-Class Exercise: Go To Brightspace

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 Conversion Specifiers

Outline

1 Conversion Specifiers

2 More on Types

3 Arithmetics

4 Math Library

5 Cast Operator

6 Symbolic Constant

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 Conversion Specifiers

Conversion Specifiers for scanf and printf

Type printf scanf

short %d, %i, %hd, %hi %hd, %hi
int %d, %i %d, %i
long %ld, %li %ld, %li
unsigned short %hu %hu
unsigned int %u %u
unsigned long %lu %lu
float %f, %e, %E, %g, %G %f, %e, %E, %g, %G
double %f, %e, %E, %g, %G %lf, %le, %lE, %lg, %lG
long double %Lf, %Le, %LE, %Lg, %LG %Lf, %Le, %LE, %Lg, %LG

Conversion specifiers for scanf and for printf are not always the
same (check type double).
“%e” and “%E” are for scientific notations: 1.3e3 and 1.3E3
You do not need to remember this entire table. Just the common
ones (those for int, float, double) would be good enough.

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 Conversion Specifiers

Width and Precision Formatting in printf

By running this code, can you figure out what %x.yf does?
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("%5.3f\n", 3.14);
printf("%7.3f\n", 3.14);
printf("%7.3f\n", 3.14345);
printf("%7.3f\n", 3.14365);
printf("%5.3f\n", 321.14);
return 0;
}

x specifies the maximum width of the number; y specifies the

precision (the number of digits after the decimal).
It is good enough to know such things exist; no need to memorize
them. Google them as you need.
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 More on Types

Outline

1 Conversion Specifiers

2 More on Types

3 Arithmetics

4 Math Library

5 Cast Operator

6 Symbolic Constant

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 More on Types

The type of a variable specifies

how much space (i.e. , the number of bytes) needed to store the
variable, and
the rule to encode numbers (i.e. the value of the variable) as bytes
(and to interpret the byte patterns as numbers)

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 More on Types

Binary Representation

Data and programs are both represented in the binary format

inside a computer.
The binary representation uses strings consisting of 0 and 1.
A single digit taking value 0 or 1 is called a bit.
A string of 8 bits is called a byte.
How many different configures can a byte take?
counting: 00000000, 00000001, 00000010, 00000011, ... , 11111111
answer: 28 = 256.
Byte is the basic unit of representation in a computer

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 More on Types

A set of rules are built-in to convert between numbers and bytes.

Converting numbers to bytes is often called “encoding”.
Encoding rules are machine-dependent.
Two main classes of encoding rules:
Fixed-point encoding
Floating-point encoding

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 More on Types

Fixed-Point Encoding

It essentially converts between bytes and integers.

Ideas:
2 bits can represent 4 integers,
e.g. 00 → 0, 01 → 1, 10 → 2, 11 → 3
(such an encoding is sometimes called “natural binary encoding”)

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 More on Types

Fixed-Point Encoding

It essentially converts between bytes and integers.

Ideas:
2 bits can represent 4 integers,
e.g. 00 → 0, 01 → 1, 10 → 2, 11 → 3
(such an encoding is sometimes called “natural binary encoding”)

“There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who

know binary and those who do not”.

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 More on Types

Fixed-Point Encoding

It essentially converts between bytes and integers.

Ideas:
2 bits can represent 4 integers,
e.g. 00 → 0, 01 → 1, 10 → 2, 11 → 3
(such an encoding is sometimes called “natural binary encoding”)

“There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who

know binary and those who do not”.

e.g. 00 → −2, 01 → −1, 10 → 0, 11 → 1

One byte can represent 28 = 256 integers, e.g. in the range of
{0, 1, . . . , 255} or {−128, −127, . . . , 127}
Two bytes can represent 216 = 65, 536 integers, e.g., in the range of
{0, 1, . . . , 65535}, or {−32768, −32766, . . . , 32767}
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 More on Types

In standard C, fixed-point types are char, short, int, long,

which are 1-byte, 2-byte, 4-byte and 8-byte encoding of integers.
The range of their encoded integers include negative numbers, 0,
and positve numbers. (The char type is mostly used to represent
characters, which we will discuss later)
Each of these type also has an unsigned version (unsigned char
unsigned short, unsigned int, unsigned long), each encoding
only non-negative numbers.
In C, numbers (formally, “literal values”) without including the
decimal point, such as “31”, “-10”, “0”, etc. are interpreted as
fixed-point numbers.

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 More on Types

A code to check the sizes of types

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("Size of char is %ld bytes\n", sizeof(char));
printf("Size of short is %ld bytes\n", sizeof(short));
printf("Size of int is %ld bytes\n", sizeof(int));
printf("Size of long is %ld bytes\n", sizeof(long));
printf("Sizes of unsigned long is %ld bytes\n",
sizeof(unsigned long));
}

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 More on Types

Floating-Point Encoding

It converts between bytes and rational/real numbers (up to certain

precision)
More complex encoding methods
Encoding with more bytes gives larger range and higher precision
In standard C, floating-point types are float (4 bytes), double (8
bytes).
Another floating-point type in C is long double, which usually has
higher precise than double. The number of bytes storing long
double varies (e.g. , 10 bytes, 12 bytes, or 16 bytes)
In C, numbers (formally, “literal values”) including the decimal
point, such as “31.0”, “-10.135”, “.567” , “1.32e3”, are interpreted
as floating-point numbers.
Note: “1.32e13” represents 1.32 × 1013 .
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 Arithmetics

Outline

1 Conversion Specifiers

2 More on Types

3 Arithmetics

4 Math Library

5 Cast Operator

6 Symbolic Constant

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 Arithmetics

Operation C Binary Operator Example Expression

addition + a+b
subtraction - a-b
multiplication * a*b
division / a/b
modulus % a%b
The modulus operator % applies to integers only. The expression a
% b gives the remainder of dividing a by b, for example, 23 % 5
gives value 3.
Be very careful with the division operator:
If either a or b is floating-point, then a/b is the regular division.
For example, 3.0/5 gives 0.6.
if both a and b are fixed-point, then a/b is gives the quotient of
dividing a by b. For example, 3/5 gives 0 and 8/5 gives 1.

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 Arithmetics

Operator Precedence

Contents of parentheses (...) are evaluated first.

If there are many levels of parentheses, then the innermost pair is
evaluated first; the next innermost pair is evaluated second ...
If there are many pairs of parentheses on the same level then they
are evaluated left to right.
Unary operator (such as negation) is evaluated next.
Multiplications, divisions and moduli are evaluated next.
If there are many, they are evaluated from left to right.
Additions and subtractions are evaluated last.
If there are many, they are evaluated left to right.

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 Arithmetics

Implicit Rule of Promotion

An expression that contains variables of several different types will

be converted according to the “implicit rule of promotion”.
The basic idea/rationale is the following.
A high-range type can represent a low-range type without losing
information (e. g. representing int by long); a high-precision type
can represent a low-precision type without losing information (e. g.
representing float by double).
When a low-range type interacts with a high-range type via an
arithmetic operation, the result is automatically represented using
the high-range type; similarly when a low-precision type interacts
with a high-precision type, the result is automatically represented
using the high-precision type.
The same rule of promotion applies when a
low-range/low-precision value is assigned to a
high-range/high-precision variable, in which case, the value is
automatically promoted to the high-range/high-precision.
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 Arithmetics

Play with this kind of code and investigate!

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int x=1;
printf("1 is represented by %ld bytes\n", sizeof(1));
printf("5.0 is represented by %ld bytes\n", sizeof(5.0));
printf("1+5.0 is represented by %ld bytes\n", sizeof(1+5.0));
printf("x is represented by %ld bytes\n", sizeof(x));
printf("(1+5.0)*x is represented by %ld bytes\n", sizeof((1+5.0)*x));
return 0;
}

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 Arithmetics

Examples

Expression Value
3/4 0
3.0/4 0.75
0.3+3/4 0.3
0.3+3/4.0 1.05
(0.3+3)/4 0.825

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 Math Library

Outline

1 Conversion Specifiers

2 More on Types

3 Arithmetics

4 Math Library

5 Cast Operator

6 Symbolic Constant

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 Math Library

Standard Math Library

There is a rich library of built-in standard math functions we can

use in C.
To use these functions, we need to use pre-processor directive
#include <math.h>
Most of these functions have their input variables declared as
double, and also have return type double.

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 Math Library

Math Function C function

√
x sqrt(x)
x y pow(x,y)
ex exp(x)
loge x log(x)
log10 x log10(x)
|x| fabs(x) Note
sin(x) sin(x) All functions taking an
cos(x) cos(x) angle as input or output use
tan(x) tan(x) radian (rather than degree)
arcsin(x) asin(x) as the unit for angle.
. arccos(x) acos(x)
arctan(x) atan(x)
sinh(x) sinh(x)
cosh(x) cosh(x)
tanh(x) tanh(x)
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 Math Library

The function ceil(x) rounds x to the smallest integer that is

greater than or equal to x.
“ceil” stands for “ceiling”
The function floor(x) rounds x to the largest integer that is less
than or equal to x.
Note that these two functions return an integer value but with
type double.

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 Cast Operator

Outline

1 Conversion Specifiers

2 More on Types

3 Arithmetics

4 Math Library

5 Cast Operator

6 Symbolic Constant

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 Cast Operator

The Cast Operator

A cast operator is a unary operator, i.e., acting only on one

value/variable.
An unary operator has higher precedence than binary operators.
A cast operator forces a value/variable to be interpreted as a
different type (“casts” the value/variable to a different type).
A cast operator is in the form of “(aType)”, and used in
expressions like “(aType) aValue”, where aValue is a value or a
variable, and aType is the type to which aValue is forced.
int a=1, b=2;
float c;
c=(float)a/b;
In this example, the value of c will be 0.5.

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 Cast Operator

Caution with Casting

It is fine to cast a low-precision (or low-range) variable to a

high-precision (or high-range, resp.) type.
The opposite is however discouraged.
It results in loss of information and even wrong number!
Do it only if that is really what you want.

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 Symbolic Constant

Outline

1 Conversion Specifiers

2 More on Types

3 Arithmetics

4 Math Library

5 Cast Operator

6 Symbolic Constant

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 Symbolic Constant

Symbolic Constant

Symbolic constants are defined using the pre-processor directive

define, for example,
#define NBR_OF_STUDENTS 455
which instructs the compiler to replace every occurrence of
NBR_OF_STUDENTS in the code with 455 before compilation.
#define PI 3.141593
which instructs the compiler to replace every occurrence of PI in
the code with 3.141593 before compilation.
Recall that pre-processor directives do not require a “;” at the end.

Highlight
The use of symbolic constants can eliminate “magic numbers” and
makes the program more readable and easier to maintain.

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 Symbolic Constant

Programming Example

Write a program that asks the user to enter two integer values
representing the radii of two circles in unit of centimeter, and prints
the perimeters of the two circles and their ratio. Use a symbolic
constant for PI.

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Symbolic Constant

Coding Demonstration

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