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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +

+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam (DHMAI)

Assistant Professor, Dept of CSE
East West University, Bangladesh
Specialist System-on-Chip Software (5G) Nokia
Nokia Headquarters, Espoo, Finland
D.Sc in Technology (CSE)
Aalto University, Finland
M.Sc in Computer Science
University of Helsinki, Finland
B.Sc in CSE, BUET, Bangladesh
Web Page: https://www.ewubd.edu/faculty-profile/mahmood.aminul
Personal Website: https://hmaislam.github.io/myweb/

Contact Person:

Md. Farhad Billah Mohua Akter

Student, Department of CSE Student, Department of CSE
East West University, Dhaka, Bangladesh East West University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +
+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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Variables

A variable in a program is something with a name, the value of which can vary. The way the compiler and
linker handles this is that it assigns a specific block of memory within the computer to hold the value of
that variable.

The size of that block depends on the range over which the variable is allowed to vary. For example, on 32
bit PC's the size of an integer variable is 4 bytes. On older 16 bit PCs integers were 2 bytes. In C the size
of a variable type such as an integer need not be the same on all types of machines. We have integers, long
integers and short integers which you can read up on in any basic text on C. This document assumes the use
of a 32 bit system with 4 byte integers.

When we declare a variable we inform the compiler of two things, the name of the variable
and the type of the variable.

Variables in C are used to access a single location of memory and the size of the memory depends on
the size of data types.

Therefore, a variable MUST be declared before using it. When you declare a variable, the compiler
automatically allocates memory for that variable.

Example:

data_type variable_name;
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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +
+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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When Loops/Iteration of Some Pieces of Tasks arise, no worries!

Whatever we start or are heading to work on something new in programming, remember that “Try”
to understand the semantics of the new thing and how to use it in your program, what are inherent
things you need to capture into your memory.

Remember that nothing needs to be memorized. If you feel that you need to memorize something,
then definitely you have some gaps in your logic. If you are not able to find your gaps, that means
you really need to consult with your friends and teachers.

LooK at the loops: See if you find any difference in logic

Syntax:

Same purpose
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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +
+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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Where can we use loops?

E.g. H.S.C / S.S.C Mathematics : সমান্তর ধারা, গুণোত্তর ধারা

Some logic:

Condition false ; if value is zero;

true ; otherwise ;

for/while → iteration number: zero or more times

do-while → iteration number: once or more

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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +
+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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Variables vs Arrays vs Pointers:

Variables

A variable in a program is something with a name, the value of which can vary. The
way the compiler and linker handles this is that it assigns a specific block of memory
within the computer to hold the value of that variable. The size of that block depends
on the range over which the variable is allowed to vary. For example, on 32 bit PC's
the size of an integer variable is 4 bytes. On older 16 bit PCs integers were 2 bytes.
In C the size of a variable type such as an integer need not be the same on all types
of machines. We have integers, long integers and short integers which you can read
up on in any basic text on C. This document assumes the use of a 32 bit system with 4
byte integers. When we declare a variable we inform the compiler of two things, the
name of the variable and the type of the variable.

Variables in C are used to access a single location of memory and the size of the memory
depends on the size of data types. Therefore, a variable MUST be declared before using it.
When you declare a variable, the compiler automatically allocates memory for that variable.

In C programming, one of the frequent problems is to handle similar types of data. For
example: if the user wants to store marks of 10000 students, this can be done by
creating 10000 variables individually but, this is rather tedious and impracticable. These
types of problems can be handled in C programming using arrays.

Arrays can be considered as the collection of variables where the base address of the array
is the first element of the array. An array in C Programming can be defined as a number of
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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +
+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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memory locations, each of which can store the same data type and which can be referenced
through the same variable name.

Arrays and pointers are synonymous in terms of how they are used to access memory. But,
the important difference between them is that a pointer variable can take different
addresses as values whereas, in the case of an array it is fixed. In C, the name of the array
always points to the first element of an array.

An array in C Programming can be defined as a number of memory locations, each of which

can store the same data type and which can be referenced through the same variable name.

Important thing to remember in C arrays

Suppose, you declared the array of 10 students. For example: students[10]. You can use array members from
student[0] to student[9]. But, what if you want to use element student[10], student[100] etc. In this case the
compiler may not show error using these elements but, may cause fatal error during program execution

Multidimensional Arrays

Just consider each box is the storage of a simple variable. Now you can map the logic of a variable and an
element of Array in Programming.

array Col - 0 Col -1 Col -2 Col -3 Col -4 Col -5

Row- 0 array[0][0] array[0][1] array[0][2] array[0][3] array[0][4] array[0][5]

Row- 1 array[1][1] array[1][3]

Row- 2 array[2][5]

When we declare a variable we inform the compiler of two things, the name of the variable and the type of
the variable. For example, we declare a variable of type integer with the name k by writing:
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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +
+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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int k;

On seeing the "int" part of this statement the compiler sets aside 4 bytes of memory to hold the value of the
integer. It also sets up a symbol table. In that table it adds the symbol k and the relative address in memory
where those 4 bytes were set aside.

k=2

We expect that, at run time when this statement is executed, the value 2 will be placed in that memory
location reserved for the storage of the value of k. In C we refer to a variable such as the integer k as an
"object".

In C when we define a pointer variable we do so by preceding its name with an asterisk. We also give our
pointer a type which, in this case, refers to the type of data stored at the address we will be storing in our
pointer. For example, consider the variable declaration:

int *ptr;

ptr is the name of our variable, the '*' informs the compiler that we want a pointer variable, i.e. to set
aside however many bytes is required to store an address in memory. The int says that we intend to use our
pointer variable to store the address of an integer. Such a pointer is said to "point to" an integer. A pointer
initialized in this manner is called a "null" pointer.

The actual bit pattern used for a null pointer may or may not evaluate to zero since there is no value assigned
to it. Thus, setting the value of a pointer using the NULL macro, as with an assignment statement such as ptr =
NULL, guarantees that the pointer has become a null pointer.

Suppose now that we want to store in ptr the address of our integer variable k. To do this we use the
unary & operator and write:

ptr = &k;

The "dereferencing operator" is the asterisk and it is used as follows:

*ptr = 7;
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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +
+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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Arrays and Pointers

Arrays and pointers are closely related in C. In fact an array declared as

int A[10];

can be accessed using its pointer representation. The name of the array A is a constant pointer to the first
element of the array. So A can be considered a const int*. Since A is a constant pointer, A = NULL would be
an illegal statement. Arrays and pointers are synonymous in terms of how they are used to access memory.

But, the important difference between them is that a pointer variable can take different addresses as
values whereas, in the case of an array it is fixed.

Consider the following array:

Declaration: int std[5];

std[0] std[1] std[2] std[3] std[4]

In C , the name of the array always points to the first element of an array. Here, the address of the
first element of an array is std[0]. Also, std represents the address of the pointer where it is pointing.
Hence, &std[0] is equivalent to std. Note, the value inside the address &std[0] and address age are equal.
Value in address &std[0] is std[0] and value in address std is *std. Hence, std[0] is equivalent to *std.

C arrays can be of any type. We define an array of ints, chars, doubles etc. We can also define an array
of pointers as follows. Here is the code to define an array of n char pointers or an array of strings.
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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +
+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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char* array[n];

each cell in the array A[i] is a char* and so it can point to a character. Now if you would like to assign a
string to each A[i] you can do something like this.

array[i] = malloc(length_of_string + 1);

Again this only allocates memory for a string and you still need to copy the characters into this string. So if
you are building a dynamic dictionary (n words) you need to allocate memory for n char*’s and then allocate
just the right amount of memory for each string.

Pointer Array

A pointer is a place in memory that keeps address of An array is a single, pre allocated chunk of contiguous
another place inside elements (all of the same type), fixed in size and
location

A pointer is a place in memory that keeps address of Expression a[4] refers to the 5th element of the
another place inside array a.

Pointer can’t be initialized at definition Arrays can be initialized at definition. Example

int num[] = { 2, 4, 5}

Pointer is dynamic in nature. The memory They are static in nature. Once memory is
allocation can be resized or freed later. allocated , it cannot be resized or freed
dynamically
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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +
+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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(MMAP) Variables vs Arrays vs Pointers:

Type: unsigned/signed number

Unsigned data type: uint8_t

uint16_t
uint32_t

8/16/32 bits
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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +
+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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Mapping:

A single location

Multiple addresses but in the case of Array the first address is randomly allocated and the rest addresses
will be contiguous and the size of the memory will be based on your declaration for the array. Again note that
the first address, index 0 (zero) will be allocated randomly by the compiler (which is called the base address)
and the rest address will follow contiguously of the base address.

0 1 …… n

Figure: Each box represents one memory address whose size is defined by the data type of the Array. The
figure has been drawn in this way to dictate that an array is nothing but a collection of variables.
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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +
+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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Starting to think like a C programmer

Now that we have spent some time studying and tried to

understand the core of C programming, we are talking
about the C language. You may have been trying to think
like a Java programmer and convert that thought to C.
Now it is time to think like a C programmer. Being able to
think directly in C will make you a better C programmer.

Here are 15 things to remember when you start a C program from scratch.

1. include <stdio.h> and all other related headers in all your programs.
2. Declare functions and variables before using them
3. Better to increment and decrement with ++ and -- operators.
4. Better to use x += 5 instead of x = x +5
5. A string is an array of characters ending with a ‘\0”. Don’t ever forget the null character
6. Array of size n has indices from 0 to n-1. Although C will allow you to access A[n] it
is very dangerous
7. A character can be represented by an integer (ASCII value) and can be used as such
8. The unary operator & produces an address
9. The unary operator * dereference a pointer
10. Arguments to functions are always passed by value. But the argument can be an address of
just a value
11. For efficiency, pointers can be passed to or return from a function
12. Logical false is zero and anything else is true
13. You can do things like for(;;) or while(i++) for program efficiency and understanding
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+ Mapping variables to Arrays and Pointers +
+ This document is solely the property of EWU, CSE, Prepared by Dr. Hasan Mahmood Aminul Islam +
+ Maintained by Farhad Billah andMohua Akter, Std, EWU, BD +
+ +
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14. Use /* .. */ instead of //, it makes the code look better and readable
15. The last and most important one, always compile your program before submitting or
showing to someone. Don’t assume that your code is compilable
16. and contains no errors. Try using –std=c99, which is the c99 standard. It's better.
(Although, c11 is also on its way but not a standard at the moment for all machines)