BASICS OF C

PROGRAMMING

COMPILER

Acompileris a piece of code that translates the high level

language into machine language. When a user writes a code in a
high level language such as Java and wants it to execute, a
specific compiler which is designed for Java is used before it will
be executed. The compiler scans the entire program first and then
translates it into machine code which will be executed by the
computer processor and the corresponding tasks will be
performed.

Interpreter

Interpreters are not much different than compilers. They

also convert the high level language into machine readable
binary equivalents. Each time when an interpreter gets a
high level language code to be executed, it converts the
code into an intermediate code before converting it into the
machine code. Each part of the code is interpreted and then
execute separately in a sequence and an error is found in a
part of the code it will stop the interpretation of the code
without translating the next set of the codes.

differences between compiler

and interpreter are listed below
The interpreter takes one statement then translates it
and executes it and then takes another statement. While
the compiler translates the entire program in one go and
then executes it.
Compiler generates the error report after the translation
of the entire page while an interpreter will stop the
translation after it gets the first error.
Compiler takes a larger amount of time in analyzing and
processing the high level language code comparatively
interpreter takes lesser time in the same process.
Besides the processing and analyzing time the overall
execution time of a code is faster for compiler relative to
the interpreter.

STAGES OF COMPILATION
PREPROCESSING : expand macros,
removing comment lines, included
header files

COMPILATION : source code to

assembly language

ASSEMBLY : assembly to machine

code

LINKING : create final executable

DATA TYPES

Char 8bit /1byte

Int 2 byte/4byte
Float 4 byte
Double 8 byte

MODIFIERS

Signed signed (+/-)

Unsigned only +
Short 2byte
Long 4 byte

Big-endian and Little-endian

Big-endian system address are
always in ABCD and data is stored in
ABCD order.
Little-endian system address are
always in ABCD and data is stored in
DCBA order.

ASCII TABLE

Properties of variable

Scope of the variable (local and global)

Life of the variable (initialization and free)
Default initial value of a variable
Storage of a variable (Memory / register)
Lvalue and Rvalue of the variable
Qualifier of the variable (const and volatile)

Variable :
A variable is a named object that resides in the RAM
and is capable of being examined and modified.

Types of variable
(a)Variables which can store only one data at time.
Example: integer variables, char variables, pointer
variables etc.

(b)Variables which can store more than one data of

similar type at a time. Example: array variables

(c) Variables, which can store more than one value of

dissimilar type at a time. Example: structure or union
variables.

Rules for naming variables

Variable name must be within 32 char in
16bit compiler such as turbo C and 4096
characters in 32 bit compiler like GCC.
Int abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123456=200;

The First char must be an alphabet or an

underscore and the rest can be alphabets
,digits and underscore.
No space or special character allowed.
No keyword can be a variable name.

Lvalue
LValue: Lvalue standsforleft value. In any assignment statement LValue

must be a container i.e. which have ability to hold the data. In c has only
one type only container and which is variable. Hence LValue must be any
variable in c it cannot be a constant, function or any other data type of c.
//10=5; LValue cannot be a integer constant
//max=20; //Lvalue cannot be a micro constant
//b=11; Lvalue cannot be a constant variable
//float=3.3f; Lvalue cannot be a data type
//abc={sachin,5}; Lvalue cannot be a data type
//BLUE =2; Lvalue cannot be a enum constant

Rvalue
RValue: In any assignment statement RValue
must be anything which can return and constant
value or it is itself a constant. RValue can be any c
constants, variables, function which is returning a
value etc.
//RValue
//RValue
//RValue
//RValue
//RValue

can
can
can
can
can

be
be
be
be
be

a
a
a
a
a

constant.
constant variable
variable.
enum constant.
function.

Declaration of variables
in c
Declaration of variables means to acknowledge the
compiler only about variable name and its data
type with its modifiers but compiler doesnt reserve
any memoryforthe variables.
(1)Since declaration variable doesnt get any memory
space so we cannot assign any value to variable.
(2)We cannot use any operator with a variable which
has only declared.
(3)We can declare any variable either globally or
locally.
(4)A same variable can be declared many times.

Definition of variables in
c
A c statement in which a variable gets a memory is known as
definition of variable. All auto, register, static and initialized extern
variable are example of definition of variables.
(1)If any variable has not declared then it declaration occurs at the
time of definition.
(2)We can use any operator after the definition of variable.
(3)Definition of variables can be globally or locally.
(4)A register variable gets CPU instead of memory in definition.
(5)A static or extern variable gets memory at the compile time while
auto and register variables get memory or CPU at the run time.

Few questions
Swap two variables without using
third variable.
Write a c program without using any
semicolon which output is: Hello
world.

Operators
What is Operator?
C consists of 45 operators.
Operators specify the basic operations that are to be
performed with the basic data objects.
expression4 + 5 is equal to 9. Here 4 and 5 are called
operands and + is called operator. C language supports
following type of operators.
Arithmetic Operators
Logical (or Relational) Operators
Bitwise Operators
Assignment Operators
Misc Operators

Arithmetic Operators:
Assume variable A holds 10 and variable B holds 20

Logical (or Relational)

Operators:

Bitwise Operators:
Bitwise operator works on bits and perform bit by bit
operation.
Assume if A = 60; and B = 13; Now in binary format
they will be as follows:
A = 0011 1100
B = 0000 1101
----------------A&B = 0000 1100
A|B = 0011 1101
A^B = 0011 0001
~A = 1100 0011

Assignment Operators:

Misc Operators

Operator precedence table