INTRODUCTION TO C

INTRODUCTION TO C

C is a programming language that has been developed and designed by Dennis Ritchie in 1970’s at AT & T’s Bell laboratories of USA. It was originally written under UNIX operating system which itself was rewritten later in C language. C seems to be so popular because it is reliable, simple, easy to use and portable. Programs written in C language are fast and very efficient than its predecessors.     

Historical development of C

By 1960’s many computer languages exist but each has been developed for a specific purpose. E.g. COBOL for business and commercial applications, FORTRAN for engineering and scientific purposes etc.

  The C language derives like name from the fact that it is based on a language developed by Ken Thompson, another programmer at Bell Laboratories. He adapted it from a language known as Basic Combined Programming Language (BCPL). TO distinguish his version of language from BCPL, Thompson named it B language, which was the first letter of BCPL. When the language was modified and improved to its present state, the second letter of BCPL, C was chosen to represent the new version by Dennis Ritchie.                  

C Fundamentals

The basic elements used to construct simple C statements include the C character set, constants, variables, identifiers and keywords, data types etc. These basic elements can be combined to form the statements of the program.

  A program must be able to store its input at some place so that it can work with the data and process it into form that is meaningful to the user. All the data processed by a program is stored either as a variable or as a constant. Each variable in C language has some characteristics associated with it, called as storage class.

   The ability to divide the data into different types is one of the most important features of the modern programming languages. It enables us to work with relatively complex data objects instead of elementary data objects that a computer can understand and manipulate.

Getting started with C language

A language is a way of communication with each other. In other words it is broadly defined as: Alphabets are combined to form words, words are combined to form sentences, sentences are combined to form paragraphs, and also rules and regulations are combined to form sentences. This whole combination is known as language.

A step by step procedure for leaning language can also be shown below:

C language is a way of communication with computer. It can be broadly defined as: Alphabets, digits or special symbols are combined to form constants, variables or keywords, which are further combined to form instructions, rules and regulations i.e. grammar rules are also combined for instructions and instructions are further combined to form program.

To learn C language, a step by step procedure can be shown below: