Computer Programming[CSI101]

Koustav Rudra
Introduction to C
30/05/2022
Books
• Programming with C
• Byron Gottfried, Schaum’s Outlines Series, Tata McGraw-Hill

• The C Programming Language

• Brian W Kernighan, Dennis M Ritchie, Prentice Hall India

• Programming in ANSI C
• E. Balaguruswamy, Tata McGraw-Hill
About the course
• Class Timings
• Monday [2:00 – 2:50]
• Tuesday [3:00 – 3:50]
• Wednesday [4:00 – 4:50] è Tutorial

• Programming Lab
• Thursday [9:00 – 10:50]

• Mid-Sem --- To be announced

• End-Sem --- 12 – 19th July, 2022
Extra Classes and Adjustments
• Extra Classes
• 31/05/2022(Tuesday): 2-3 PM
• 14/06/2022(Tuesday): 2-3 PM
• 21/06/2022(Tuesday): 2-3 PM
• 28/06/2022(Tuesday): 2-3 PM

• Replacement
• 08/06/2022(Wednesday)[4-5] 07/06/2022(Tuesday)[2-3]
Relevant Information
• Updates, announcement, course material will be disseminated through google classroom
• Students are advised to join both theory and programming courses

• For beginners:
• Learn C through programming

• Attendance:
• 75% mandatory
• Attendance will be based on serial number
• Faculty is not responsible if students misplaced their seats
 Architecture
• Typical system architecture for a desktop PC

Input Output
Memory
Device Device

Transfer of data

ALU CU
Communication of
CPU
control signals
Central Processing Unit (CPU)
• All computations take place here in order for the computer to perform a designated task

• It has a large number of registers which temporarily store data and programs (instructions)

• It has functional units (circuitry) to carry out arithmetic and logic operations

• It retrieves instructions from the memory, interprets (decodes) them, and performs the requested
operation
Main Memory
• Uses semiconductor technology
• Allows direct access

• Memory sizes in the range of 256 MegaBytes to 16 GigaBytes are typical today

• Some measures to be remembered

• 1 K = 210 (= 1024)
• 1 M = 220 (= one million approx.)
• 1 G = 230 (= one billion approx.)
Secondary Memory
• Provides permanent storage

• Data is stored in the form of sectors, tracks, cylinders

• Memory sizes in the range of 500 GB to 2 TB (TeraBytes) are typical today

I/O and Peripherals
• Input Device
• Keyboard, Mouse, Scanner

• Output Device
• Monitor, Printer
Computer Languages
• A programming language is a language specifically designed to express computations that can be
performed on a computer

• Programming languages are used to express algorithms or as a mode of human communication

Computer Languages
• Machine Language [1st Gen]

• Expressed in binary
• All the commands and data values are expressed using 1s and 0s

• Directly understood by the computer

• The code can run very fast and efficiently, since it is directly executed by the CPU

• Not portable; varies from one machine type to another

• Program written for one type of machine will not run on another type of machine

• Difficult to use in writing programs

Computer Languages
• Assembly Language [2nd Gen]
• Mnemonic form of machine language

• Easier to use as compared to machine language

• For example, use “ADD” instead of “10110100”

• Not portable (like machine language)

• Assembly language is machine dependent

• Requires a translator program called assembler

Assembly Language Machine Language

Program Assembler Program
Computer Languages
• Assembly language is also difficult to use in writing programs
• Requires many instructions to solve a problem

• Example: Find the average of three numbers

• MOV A,X : A = X
• ADD A,Y ; A = A + Y
• ADD A,Z ; A = A + Z
• DIV A,3 ; A = A / 3
• MOV RES,A ; RES = A
In C,
RES = (X + Y + Z)/3
High Level Language
• Machine language and assembly language are called low-level languages
• They are closer to the machine
• Difficult to use
• High-level languages are easier to use
• They are closer to the programmer
• Portable across machines

• 3rd Gen Languages

• FORTRAN, PASCAL, COBAL, C, C++
• 4th and 5th Gen Languages [Non-procedural]
• Prolog, SQL, Ruby
• Needs to worry about what problems need to be solved and what conditions need to be met, without
worrying about how to implement a routine or algorithm to solve them

• Requires an elaborate process of translation

• Using a software called compiler/interpreter
Programmer jargon
• Some words that will be used a lot:

• Source code: The stuff you type into the computer. The program you are writing

• Compile(build): Taking source code and making a program that the computer can understand

• Executable: The compiled program that the computer can run

• Language: The core part of C central to writing C code

• Library: Added functions for C programming which are bolted onto do certain tasks

• Header file: Files ending in ‘.h’ which are included at the start of source code
HLL Program
HLL Program
HLL Program

HLL Program
Compiler HLL Program Linker HLL Program
HLL Program Executable Code
Object Code

HLL Program
HLL Program
Libraries
Linker and Loader
• Compiler converts source code written in a programming language (the source language) into
machine language
• If code contains error compiler fails
• Syntax Error
• Logic Error

X.c Compiler X.o

• Interpreter operates line by line

• If any line contains error execution halts there
Linker and Loader
• Linker is a program that combines object modules to form an executable

X1.o

X2.o
Linker X.o
X3.o

• Loader is a special type of program that copies programs from a storage device to main memory,
where they can be executed
• Transparent to user
Operating System
• Makes the computer easy to use
• Basically the computer is very difficult to use
• Understands only machine language

• Operating systems make computers easy to use

• Categories of operating systems:

• Single user
• Multi user
• Timesharing
• Multitasking
• Realtime
Operating System
• Popular Operating System
• Windows 2000/XP/11 --- single user multitasking
• Unix --- multiuser
• Linux --- a free version of Unix
How does a program work?
• Stored program concept
• Main difference from a calculator

• What is a program?
• Set of instructions for carrying out a specific task

• Where are programs stored?

• In secondary memory, when first created
• Brought into main memory, during execution
Why teach C?
• C is small (only 32 keywords)

• C is common (lots of C code about)

• C is stable (the language doesn’t change much)

• C is quick running

• C is the basis for many other languages (Java, C++, awk, Perl)

• It may not feel like it but C is one of the easiest languages to learn
Keywords of C [32]
Flow Control (6) if, else, return, switch, case, default

Loops (5) for, do, while, break, continue

Common types (5) int, float, double, char, void

Structures (3) struct, typedef, union

Counting and Sizing things enum, sizeof

(2)

Rare but useful types (7) extern, signed, unsigned, long, short, static, const

Evil keywords which

goto
should be avoided (1)

Wierdies (3) auto, register, volatile

The C character set
• The C language alphabet:
• Uppercase letters ‘A’ to ‘Z’
• Lowercase letters ‘a’ to ‘z’
• Digits ‘0’ to ‘9’

• Certain special characters:

How to write a program?
• Algorithm / Flowchart
• A step-by-step procedure for solving a particular problem
• Independent of the programming language

• Program
• A translation of the algorithm/flowchart into a form that can be processed by a computer
• Typically written in a high-level language like C, C++, Java
Problem Solving
• Step 1:
• Clearly specify the problem to be solved
• Step 2:
• Draw flowchart or write algorithm
• Step 3:
• Convert flowchart (algorithm) into program code
• Step 4:
• Compile the program into object code
• Step 5:
• Execute the program
Variables and Constants
• Most important concept for problem solving using computers

• All temporary results are stored in terms of variables

• The value of a variable can be changed
• The value of a constant do not change

• Where are they stored?

• In main memory
Variables and Constants
• How does memory look like (logically)?

• As a list of storage locations, each having a unique address

• Variables and constants are stored in these storage locations

Memory Map
Address 0

Address 1

Address 2
Every variable is mapped to a
particular memory address

Address N-2

Address N-1
 Variables in Memory
Variable
Instruction Executed
X Y

X = 50 50 ?

Y = 30 50 30

Time
X=Y*5 150 30

Y=X/2 150 75
Flowchart: Basic Symbols

Computation/ Processing Statements

Input/ Output

Decision Box

Start/ Stop
Flowchart: Basic Symbols

Flow of Control

Connector [For longer flow chart]

Example 1: Adding three numbers
START

READ A, B, C

S=A+B+C

OUTPUT S

STOP
Types of variable
• We must declare the type of every variable we use in C

• Every variable has a type (e.g. int) and a name

• This prevents some bugs caused by spelling errors (misspelling variable names)

• Declarations of types should always be together at the top of main or a function (see later)

• Other types are char, signed, unsigned, long, short and const (see later)
Identifiers
• Names given to various program elements (variables, constants, functions, etc.)

• May consist of letters, digits and the underscore (‘_’) character, with no space between.

• First character must be a letter or underscore

• There cannot be two successive underscores

• Keywords cannot be used as identifiers

• An identifier can be arbitrary long

• Some C compilers recognize only the first few characters of the name (16 or 31)

• Case sensitive
• ‘area’, ‘AREA’ and ‘Area’ are all different
Valid and Invalid Identifiers
• Valid Identifiers • Invalid Identifiers

• X • 10abc
• Abc • my-name
• simple_interest • “hello”
• _emp_1 • simple interest
• a123 • (area)
• LIST • %rate
• stud_name Empl_3
• Empl_2 avg_empl_salary
Datatypes
• int :- integer quantity
• Typically occupies 4 bytes (32 bits) in memory

• char :- single character

• Represents basic data types
• Typically occupies 1 byte (8 bits) in memory
• This is for 64bit machines
• float :- floating-point number (a number with a decimal point) • However, specifics will vary
• Typically occupies 4 bytes (32 bits) in memory with different hardware and
machine

• double :- double-precision floating-point number

• Typically occupies 8 bytes (64 bits) of memory
Datatypes: Qualifier
• Some of the basic data types can be augmented by using certain data type qualifiers:
• short
• long
• signed
• unsigned

• Typical examples: –
• short int
• long int
• unsigned int
• unsigned char
Datatype – Memory [64 bit machine]
Qualifier Data-type Bytes
int 4
short int 2
long int 8
float 4
short float X
long float X
double 8
short double X
long double 16
char 1
short char X
long char X
Datatype – Values [64 bit machine]
Qualifier Data-type Bytes
int -231 to 231-1
unsigned int 0 to 232-1
char -27 to 27-1
unsigned char 0 to 28-1
unsigned float X
unsigned double X
 Constants
• Four basic types of constants in C

Constants

Numeric constants Character constants

integer constants floating-point single character

string constants
constants constants
Integer Constants
• Consists of a sequence of digits, with possibly a plus or a minus sign before it
• Embedded spaces, commas and non-digit characters are not permitted between digits

• Maximum and minimum values (for 32-bit representations)

• Maximum :: 2147483647
• Minimum :: – 2147483648
Floating-point Constants
• Can contain fractional parts

• Very large or very small numbers can be represented

• 25000000 can be represented as 2.5e7

e means “10 to
• Two different notations: the power of”
• Decimal notation
• 25.0, 0.0034, .84, -2.234
• Exponential (scientific) notation
• 3.45e23, 0.123e-12, 123E2
Single Character Constants
• Contains a single character enclosed within a pair of single quote marks
• Examples :: ‘2’, ‘+’, ‘Z’

• Some special backslash characters

• ‘\n’ --- new line
• ‘\t’ --- horizontal tab
• ‘\’’ --- single quote
• ‘\”’ --- double quote
• ‘\\’ --- backslash
• ‘\0’ --- null

• Each Character constant has an associated ASCII value

• ‘a’ :: 97
• ‘A’:: 65
Escape Sequence
• Certain nonprinting characters, including backslash (\) and apostrophe (‘), can be expressed in
terms of escape sequences

• An escape sequence always begins with a backward slash and is followed by one or more special
characters
• ‘\n’ --- new line
• ‘\t’ --- horizontal tab
• ‘\’’ --- single quote
• ‘\”’ --- double quote
• ‘\\’ --- backslash
• ‘\0’ --- null
Escape Sequence
Character Escape Sequence ASCII value
bell (alert) \a 7
backspace \b 8
horizontal tab \t 9
vertical tab \v 11
newline \n 10
form feed \f 12
carriage return \r 13
double quote(“) \” 34
apostrophe/single quote \’ 39
backslash \\ 92
null \0 0
String Constants
• Sequence of characters enclosed in double quotes
• The characters may be letters, numbers, special characters and blank spaces

• Examples
• “nice”, “Good Morning”, “3+6”, “3”, “C”

• Differences from character constants:

• ‘C’ and “C” are not equivalent
• ‘C’ has an equivalent integer value while “C” does not