C is a general purpose programming language. It is one of the oldest and popular language. In 1972, it was developed by Dennis Ritchie at Bell laboratories. It was mainly developed to write UNIX operating system. C programming language also contains additional concept like simple set of keyword and clean style, which make it unique from other languages. After that many other languages came and have borrowed some syntax/features directly or indirectly from C language. Such languages are Java, PHP, JavaScript and many other languages which are mainly based on C. By the learning of C programming language beginners can also learn other languages easily.
Why to learn C Programming?
C programming language is use to develop OS, Games, Database, Embedded system and many other Applications. And we also know that C language is the base language for other programming languages and it played a main role to develop other programming languages.
To become a good programmer or software engineer you have to learn C programming. It will help you to understand other programming languages too like Java, Python etc.
As it is a structured programming language, So the programmer can easily test, maintain and debug the program. And It is easy to write and provides faster execution.
How to learn C?
- Follow the Blogs and Vlogs on C language and make your own notes.
- Write more and more codes.
- Start writing with basic examples of C program.
Taste of your first program
- Header: #include is a preprocessor which include the contents of <stdio.h>(standard input & output) file in the program. The <stdio.h> file contains the functions such as scanf( ) and printf( ) to take the input and display the output respectively.
- Main( ): The main function is the entry point where the program execution begins.
- Body: Here the programmer will write the program. printf( ) is a library function which sends the output to the screen. In this program Hello World will come on screen as an output.
- Return: As we know program contain the main function as an entry point similarly program also contain return 0; as an exit point.
What is C compiler?
A compiler is a computer program that converts the programming language into Machine language (Binary code). So that it can be easily understood by the computer. The process of converting the human readable source code into machine code called “Compilation“.
A C program written in plan text which consist digits, letters, special symbol etc. This plan text contains some instructions in particular sequence. The compiler performs some basic checks and convert the source code (<file name>.c) into executable code (<file name>.exe).
C compilers for Windows OS
Some frequently used compilers are listed below :
- Visual Studio Code
- Turbo C
- Dev-C++
- Code::Blocks
- Minimalist GNU for Windows (MinGW)
Facts of C Programming language
- C language formalized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in 1988.
- Written in Assembly language.
- Invented to write UNIX OS.
- LINUX OS, PHP and MySQL are are mainly based on C language.
Tip: In C language Semicolon ( ; ) symbol is use as line terminator and Quotation (” “) symbol with printf is use to print the quotes.