C is a general-purpose mid-level programming language developed by Dennis M. Ritchie at Bell Laboratories in 1972. It was initially used for the development of UNIX operating system, but it later became popular for a wide range of applications.
- C is considered mother of all programming languages as many later languages like Java, PHP and JavaScript have borrowed syntax/features directly or indirectly from the C.
- Learning C programming first helps to learn any modern programming language as it provide a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of programming and operating system with features like pointers.
- C is widely used in operating systems, embedded systems, compilers, databases, networking, game engines and real-time systems for its efficiency to work in low resource environment and hardware-level support.
Basics
Before starting with C basics, first set up the C development environment. Install a C compiler and choose an IDE such as Visual Studio Code or Code::Blocks to write, compile, run, and debug C programs.
- Introduction
- Compilation Process
- Identifiers
- Keywords
- Input and Output
- Variables
- Data Type
- Operators
- Conditional Statements
- Loops
Functions
Functions are block of code that performs a specific task. They allow programmers to write modular and reusable code.
Arrays and Strings
Arrays and strings are fundamental data structures used to store and manipulate collections of values efficiently.
Pointers
Pointers are variables that store memory addresses and enable direct memory access and manipulation.
User Defined Data Types
User-defined data types allow programmers to create custom data structures for organizing related data efficiently.
Memory Management
The dynamic memory management in C uses functions like malloc(), calloc(), realloc(), and free() to manually manage the memory while avoiding errors such as memory leak.
File Handling
This section teaches you how to work with files in C, including creating, reading, writing, manipulating and deleting files.
- Basics of File Handling
- Read a File
- Read/Write Structure From/to a File
- EOF, getc() and feof()
- Delete a File
Error Handling
Unlike other programming languages that have automatic error handling, In C language error handling is to be manually done by the developers using error-handling methods, debugging strategies, and functions like perror(), strerror(), etc.
Miscellaneous Concepts
This section explores various essential of C language that do not fit into a single category but play a vital role in C programming and provide advanced functionality to your program.
Advanced Concepts
This section teaches you high-level C programming techniques such as multi-threading, signal handling, socket programming, etc which are used in creating high-performance robust applications and systems.
Important Links
What's Next?
Now that you have a strong foundation in C language, you can explore more advanced topics such as Data structures and Algorithms in C. Keep challenging yourself with our collection of practice problems to further strengthen you understanding of the language:
