C Language Introduction

C is a procedural programming language initially developed by Dennis Ritchie

in the year 1972 at Bell Laboratories of AT&T Labs. It was mainly developed as
a system programming language to write the UNIX operating system.

The main features of the C language include:

 General Purpose and Portable
 Low-level Memory Access
 Fast Speed
 Clean Syntax
These features make the C language suitable for system programming like an
operating system or compiler development.

Why Should We Learn C?

Many later languages have borrowed syntax/features directly or indirectly from
the C language. Like syntax of Java, PHP, JavaScript, and many other
languages are mainly based on the C language. C++ is nearly a superset of C
language (Only a few programs may compile in C, but not in C++).
So, if a person learns C programming first, it will help him to learn any modern
programming language as well. As learning C help to understand a lot of the
underlying architecture of the operating system. Like pointers, working with
memory locations, etc.

Beginning with C programming:

Writing the First Program in C
The following code is one of the simplest C programs that will help us the basic
syntax structure of a C program.
Example:
 C

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {

int a = 10;
 printf("%d", a);

return 0;

Structure of the C program

After the above discussion, we can formally assess the structure of a C
program. By structure, it is meant that any program can be written in this
structure only. Writing a C program in any other structure will hence lead to a
Compilation Error. The structure of a C program is as follows:

Components of a C Program:
1. Header Files Inclusion – Line 1 [#include <stdio.h>]
The first and foremost component is the inclusion of the Header files in a C
program. A header file is a file with extension .h which contains C function
declarations and macro definitions to be shared between several source files.
All lines that start with # are processed by a preprocessor which is a program
invoked by the compiler. In the above example, the preprocessor copies the
preprocessed code of stdio.h to our file. The .h files are called header files in C.
Some of the C Header files:
 stddef.h – Defines several useful types and macros.
 stdint.h – Defines exact width integer types.
 stdio.h – Defines core input and output functions
 stdlib.h – Defines numeric conversion functions, pseudo-random network
generator, and memory allocation
 string.h – Defines string handling functions
 math.h – Defines common mathematical functions.

2. Main Method Declaration – Line 2 [int main()]
The next part of a C program is to declare the main() function. It is the entry
point of a C program and the execution typically begins with the first line of the
main(). The empty brackets indicate that the main doesn’t take any parameter
(See this for more details). The int that was written before the main indicates
the return type of main(). The value returned by the main indicates the status of
program termination. See this post for more details on the return type.

3. Body of Main Method – Line 3 to Line 6 [enclosed in {}]

The body of a function in the C program refers to statements that are a part of
that function. It can be anything like manipulations, searching, sorting, printing,
etc. A pair of curly brackets define the body of a function. All functions must
start and end with curly brackets.
4. Statement – Line 4 [printf(“Hello World”);]
Statements are the instructions given to the compiler. In C, a statement is
always terminated by a semicolon (;). In this particular case, we use printf()
function to instruct the compiler to display “Hello World” text on the screen.

5. Return Statement – Line 5 [return 0;]

The last part of any C function is the return statement. The return statement
refers to the return values from a function. This return statement and return
value depend upon the return type of the function. The return statement in our
program returns the value from main(). The returned value may be used by an
operating system to know the termination status of your program. The value 0
typically means successful termination.

How to Execute the Above Program?

In order to execute the above program, we need to first compile it using a
compiler and then we can run the generated executable. There are online IDEs
available for free like GeeksforGeeksIDE, that can be used to start development
in C without installing a compiler.
1. Windows: There are many free IDEs available for developing programs in C
like Code Blocks and Dev-CPP. IDEs provide us with an environment to
develop code, compile it and finally execute it. We strongly recommend
Code Blocks.
2. Linux: GCC compiler comes bundled with Linux which compiles C programs
and generates executables for us to run. Code Blocks can also be used with
Linux.
3. macOS: macOS already has a built-in text editor where you can just simply
write the code and save it with a “.c” extension.

Application of C
 Operating systems: C is widely used for developing operating systems such
as Unix, Linux, and Windows.
 Embedded systems: C is a popular language for developing embedded
systems such as microcontrollers, microprocessors, and other electronic
devices.
 System software: C is used for developing system software such as device
drivers, compilers, and assemblers.
 Networking: C is widely used for developing networking applications such as
web servers, network protocols, and network drivers.
 Database systems: C is used for developing database systems such as
Oracle, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.
 Gaming: C is often used for developing computer games due to its ability to
handle low-level hardware interactions.
 Artificial Intelligence: C is used for developing artificial intelligence and
machine learning applications such as neural networks and deep learning
algorithms.
 Scientific applications: C is used for developing scientific applications such
as simulation software and numerical analysis tools.
 Financial applications: C is used for developing financial applications such
as stock market analysis and trading systems.
 Please write comments if you find anything incorrect, or if you want to share
more information about the topic discussed above.

Features of C Programming Language

C is a procedural programming language. It was initially developed by Dennis
Ritchie in the year 1972. It was mainly developed as a system programming
language to write an operating system.
The main features of C language include low-level access to memory, a simple
set of keywords, and a clean style, these features make C language suitable for
system programming like an operating system or compiler development.
What are the Most Important Features of C Language?
Here are some of the most important features of the C language:
1. Procedural Language
2. Fast and Efficient
3. Modularity
4. Statically Type
5. General-Purpose Language
6. Rich set of built-in Operators
7. Libraries with Rich Functions
8. Middle-Level Language
9. Portability
10. Easy to Extend

Let discuss these features one by one:

1. Procedural Language

In a procedural language like C step by step, predefined instructions are

carried out. C program may contain more than one function to perform a
particular task. New people to programming will think that this is the only way a
particular programming language works. There are other programming
paradigms as well in the programming world. Most of the commonly used
paradigm is an object-oriented programming language.

2. Fast and Efficient

Newer languages like Java, python offer more features than c programming
language but due to additional processing in these languages, their
performance rate gets down effectively. C programming language as the
middle-level language provides programmers access to direct manipulation with
the computer hardware but higher-level languages do not allow this. That’s one
of the reasons C language is considered the first choice to start learning
programming languages. It’s fast because statically typed languages are faster
than dynamically typed languages.

3. Modularity

The concept of storing C programming language code in the form of libraries for
further future uses is known as modularity. This programming language can do
very little on its own most of its power is held by its libraries. C language has its
own library to solve common problems.

4. Statically Type

C programming language is a statically typed language . Meaning the type of

variable is checked at the time of compilation but not at run time. This means
each time a programmer types a program they have to mention the type of
variables used.

5. General-Purpose Language

From system programming to photo editing software, the C programming

language is used in various applications. Some of the common applications
where it’s used are as follows:
 Operating systems: Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, OXS
 Databases: PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, MS SQL Server, etc.

6. Rich set of built-in Operators

It is a diversified language with a rich set of built-in operators which are used in
writing complex or simplified C programs.
7. Libraries with Rich Functions

Robust libraries and functions in C help even a beginner coder to code with
ease.

8. Middle-Level Language

As it is a middle-level language so it has the combined form of both capabilities

of assembly language and features of the high-level language.

9. Portability

C language is lavishly portable as programs that are written in C language can

run and compile on any system with either no or small changes.

10. Easy to Extend

Programs written in C language can be extended means when a program is

already written in it then some more features and operations can be added to it.

C Hello World Program