Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Basic C Language Info.



Facts about C

C was invented to write an operating system called UNIX.
C is a successor of B language which was introduced around 1970
The language was formalized in 1988 by the American National Standard Institue (ANSI).
By 1973 UNIX OS almost totally written in C.
Today C is the most widely used System Programming Language.
Most of the state of the art software have been implemented using C

Why to use C ?
C was initially used for system development work, in particular the programs that make-up the operating system. C was adoped as a system development language because it produces code that runs nearly as fast as code written in assembly language. Some examples of the use of C might be:
  • Operating Systems
  • Language Compilers
  • Assemblers
  • Text Editors
  • Print Spoolers
  • Network Drivers
  • Modern Programs
  • Data Bases
  • Language Interpreters
  • Utilities


C Program File

All the C programs are writen into text files with extension “.c” for example hello.c. You can use “vi” editor to write your C program into a file.

This tutorial assumes that you know how to edit a text file and how to write programming insturctions inside a program file.
C Compilers

When you write any program in C language then to run that program you need to compile that program using a C Compiler which converts your program into a language understandable by a computer. This is called machine language (ie. binary format). So before proceeding, make sure you have C Compiler available at your computer. It comes alongwith all flavors of Unix and Linux.

If you are working over Unix or Linux then you can type gcc -v or cc -v and check the result. You can ask your system administrator or you can take help from anyone to identify an available C Compiler at your computer.


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