History of C Programming Language

History of C

• Developed by Dennis Ritchie between 1969 and 1973 at Bell Labs
• Initially designed for developing the Unix operating system
• First published in 1972 in the book "The C Programming Language" by Ritchie and Brian Kernighan

Features of C

• General-purpose programming language: can be used for a wide range of applications
• Procedural programming language: focuses on procedures and functions
• Statically typed language: data types are checked at compile time
• Low-level memory management: allows direct manipulation of memory
• Compiled language: code is translated into machine code before execution

Basic Syntax

• Variables: declared with a data type and name, e.g. int x;
• Data types: e.g. int, char, float, double, void
• Operators: e.g. arithmetic, comparison, logical, assignment
• Control structures: e.g. if, while, for, switch
• Functions: reusable blocks of code, e.g. int add(int x, int y) { return x + y; }

Data Types

• Integers: int, short, long, unsigned
• Characters: char, wchar_t
• Floating-point numbers: float, double, long double
• Arrays: collections of values of the same type
• Structures: collections of values of different types

Control Structures

• Conditional statements: if, if-else, switch
• Loops: while, for, do-while
• Jump statements: break, continue, return, goto

Functions

• Function declaration: specifies the function's name, return type, and parameters
• Function definition: provides the implementation of the function
• Function call: invokes the function with arguments
• Function arguments: passed by value or by reference

Pointers

• Pointer variables: hold memory addresses as values
• Pointer operators: & (address-of), * (dereference)
• Pointer arithmetic: allows manipulation of memory addresses

Memory Management

• Dynamic memory allocation: malloc, calloc, realloc, free
• Memory allocation errors: e.g. null pointer, dangling pointer, memory leak

History of C

• Developed by Dennis Ritchie between 1969 and 1973 at Bell Labs
• Initially designed for developing the Unix operating system
• First published in 1972 in the book "The C Programming Language" by Ritchie and Brian Kernighan

Features of C

• A general-purpose programming language for a wide range of applications
• Procedural programming language that focuses on procedures and functions
• Statically typed language that checks data types at compile time
• Allows low-level memory management with direct manipulation of memory
• Compiled language that translates code into machine code before execution

Basic Syntax

• Variables are declared with a data type and name, e.g. int x;
• Data types include int, char, float, double, void
• Operators include arithmetic, comparison, logical, assignment
• Control structures include if, while, for, switch
• Functions are reusable blocks of code, e.g. int add(int x, int y) { return x + y; }

Data Types

• Integers include int, short, long, unsigned
• Characters include char, wchar_t
• Floating-point numbers include float, double, long double
• Arrays are collections of values of the same type
• Structures are collections of values of different types

Control Structures

• Conditional statements include if, if-else, switch
• Loops include while, for, do-while
• Jump statements include break, continue, return, goto

Functions

• Function declaration specifies the function's name, return type, and parameters
• Function definition provides the implementation of the function
• Function call invokes the function with arguments
• Function arguments can be passed by value or by reference

Pointers

• Pointer variables hold memory addresses as values
• Pointer operators include & (address-of) and * (dereference)
• Pointer arithmetic allows manipulation of memory addresses

Memory Management

• Dynamic memory allocation includes malloc, calloc, realloc, free
• Memory allocation errors include null pointer, dangling pointer, memory leak