CSC 270 – Survey of

Programming Languages
C Lecture 1 : Getting Started: in C

Modified from Dr. Robert Siegfried’s Presentation

Objective
• Intro to C
• Tools we will use
• Program file structure
• Variables
• Read from screen and print to screen
• Decisions (If)
 C Orientation
• Created in 1972 to write operating systems (Unix
in particular)
– By Dennis Ritchie
– Bell Labs
• Evolved from B
• Can be portable to other hardware (with careful
design – use Plauger’s The Standard C Library
book)
• Built for performance and memory management –
operating systems, embedded systems, real-time
systems, communication systems

C Standardization
• 1989 ANSI and ISO -> Standard C
• 1999 C99
• 2011 C11

• Don’t get thrown when you lookup

information on websites and find conflicts
based upon standards
 Later Languages
• 1979 C++ by Bjarn Stroustrup also at Bell
– Object orientation
• 1991 Java by Sun
– Partial compile to java bytecode: virtual
machine code
– Write once, run anywhere
– Memory manager – garbage collection
– Many JVMs written in C / C++

A First Program
makes input
and output available
#include <stdio.h>
to us
header
int main(void)
{
printf("This is my first C program.\n");
return(0);
}

open and close braces mark statements

the beginning and end
A First Program – What Does It Do?
printf("This is my first C program.\n");
return(0);

Prints the message

This is my first C program.

Ends the program Ends the line

Java Reminder
Program C Java

#include<stdio.h> public class HelloWorld {

public static void main(String[]

int main(void) {
args) {
hello, world
printf("Hello\n"); System.out.println("Hello");

return 0; }
} }
 C Program Phases
• Editor - code by programmer
• Compiling using gcc:
– Preprocess – expand the programmer’s code
– Compiler – create machine code for each file
– Linker – links with libraries and all compiled
objects to make executable
• Running the executable:
– Loader – puts the program in memory to run it
– CPU – runs the program instructions

Copyright © Pearson, Inc. 2013. All

Rights Reserved.
 Copyright © Pearson, Inc. 2013. All
Rights Reserved.

Run First Program

• Write in notepad++
• Transfer with Filezilla
• Connect to panther as terminal (putty) using
SSH (Secure Shell)
• More filename to see the file
• gcc filename -o filename without c -g (ex:
gcc hello.c -o hello -g )
• ./hello
 Using variables
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
int sum, value1, value2, value3;
float average;
value1 = 2;
value2 = 4;
value3 = 6;
sum = 2 + 4 + 6;
average = sum / 3;
printf("The average of %d , %d, %d is %f\n",
value1, value2, value3, average);
return(0);
}
Print a float value from the
rest of the parameter list

Variables and Identifiers

• Variables have names – we call these names identifiers.
• An identifier must begin with a letter or an underscore _
• C is case sensitive upper case (capital) or lower case letters
are considered different characters. Average, average
and AVERAGE are three different identifiers.
• Numbers can also appear after the first character.
• However, C only considers the first 31 (external
identifiers) or first 63 (internal identifiers) significant.
• Identifiers cannot be reserved words (special words like
int, main, etc.)
 User Input
• Let’s rewrite the average program so it
can find the average any 3 numbers we
try:
• We now need to:
1. Find our three values
2. Add the values
3. Divide the sum by 3
4. Print the result

Average3.c
#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
int value1, value2, value3;
float sum, average;

printf("What is the first value? ");

scanf("%d", &value1);
Read The address of variable value1
printf("What is the second value? ");
scanf("%d", &value2);

Indicates that we are

reading an integer
 printf("What is the third value? ");
scanf("%d", &value3);
scanf needs the &
sum = value1 + value2 + value3; before the identifier
average = sum / 3;

printf("The average of %d , %d, %d is

%f\n", value1, value2, value3, average);
return(0);
}

Scanf Conversion Characters

• https://wpollock.com/CPlus/PrintfRef.htm#
scanfConv
Doubles on our machine are read with a lf.
(A double is a long float.)
 Formatting %d and %f
• The specifiers %d and %f allow a programmer to
specify how many spaces a number will occupy
and how many decimal places will be used.
• %nd will use at least n spaces to display the
integer value in decimal (base 10) format.
• %w.nf will use at least w spaces to display the
value and will have exactly n decimal places.
• Example:
– printf("The average of %2d , %2d,
%2d is %5.2f\n", value1, value2,
value3, average);

Changing the width

Number Formatting Print as:
%2d
182 182
%3d
182 182
%5d
182 ``182
%7d
182 `’’`182
%4d
-182 -182
%5d
-182 `-182
%7d
-182 ```-182
 Changing the width (continued)
Number Formatting Print as:
23 %1d 23
23 %2d 23
23 %6d ….23
23 %8d ……23
11023 %4d 11023
11023 %6d .11023
-11023 %6d -11023
-11023 %10d ….-11023

Changing The Precision

Number Formatting Prints as:
2.718281828 %8.5f `2.71828
2.718281828 %8.3f ```2.718
2.718281828 %8.2f ````2.72
2.718281828 %8.0f ````````3
2.718281828 %13.11f 2.71828182800
2.718281828 %13.12f 2.718281828000
 Average – add comments
#include <stdio.h>
/*
* This program calculates average pay
*/
int main(void)
{
int value1, value2, value3;
float sum, average;
string
// now get the first value
;

Character Data
• All of our programs so far have used
variables to store numbers, not words.
• We can store one or more characters by
writing:
char x, s[10];
– x can hold one and only one character
– s can hold up to nine characters (reserving 1
for ending null)
• For now, we use character data for input
and output only.
A program that uses a character variable
#include <stdio.h>

/* A very polite program that greets you by name */

int main(void)
{
char name[25];

/* Ask the user his/her name */

printf("What is your name ? ");
scanf("%s", name);

/* Greet the user */

printf("Glad to meet you, %s\n.", name);
return(0);
}

Features so far
• Include
• Variable types: int, float, char
• Read using scanf
– requires & for address of variable being read
• Print using printf
• Format strings: %f (float), %d (int), %u
(unsigned int), %c (char), %s (character
array)
• Comments /*.. */ or //
 if and if-else and if-else if - else
If (boolean_expression 1)
{ /statements }
else if ( boolean_expression 2)
{ /* statements */ }
else if ( boolean_expression 3)
{ /* statements */ }
else
{ /* statements */ }

IsItNeg.c – illustrate if
#include <stdio.h>
// Tell a user if a number is negative
int main(void)
{ float number;
/* Ask the user for a number */
printf("Please enter a number ? ");
scanf("%f", &number);
// Print whether the number is negative or not
if (number < 0){
printf("%f is a negative number\n", number); }
else {
printf("%f is NOT a negative number\n", number); }
return(0); }
 Relational operators
Operator Meaning Example
== equals x == y
!= is not equal to 1 != 0
> greater than x+1 > y
< less than x-1 < 2*x
>= greater than or x+1 >= 0
equal to
<= less than or equal -x +7 <= 10
to

Integer Division

• Our compound interest program prints the

values for every year where every ten or
twenty years would be good enough.
• What we really want to print the results
only if the year is ends in a 5. (The
remainder from division by 10 is 5).
 Integer Division Results
8 / 3 = 2 8 % 3 = 2
2 / 3 = 0 2 % 3 = 2
49 / 3 = 16 49 % 3 = 1
49 / 7 = 7 49 % 7 = 0
-8 / 3 = -2 -8 % 3 = -2
-2 / 3 = 0 -2 % 3 = -2
-2 / -3 = 0 -2 % -3 = -2
2 / -3 = 0 2 %-3 = 2
-49 / 3 = -16 -49 % 3 = -1

Choosing Data Types

• Sizes implementation dependent in limits.h
– int -2147483648 to 2147483647
– short -32768 to 32767
– long -9223372036854775808 to
9223372036854775807
– Float 1.17x10-38 to 3.4 * 1038
• Keyword unsigned starts at 0 but goes
higher
 Declaring Constants
•There are two ways of defining constants in C: using
#define and const.
•#define is a compiler preprocessor which replaces each
occurrence of the constant's name with its value:
•The general form of the constant declaration is:
#define ConstantName ConstantValue

•Let's take a look at a few examples:

#define withholding_rate 0.8
#define prompt 'y'
#define answer "yes"
#define maxpeople 15
#define inchperft 12
#define speed_limit 55

Declaring Constants
•The general form of the constant declaration is:
const datatype ConstantName =
ConstantValue,
AnotherConstantName =
AnotherConstantValue;

•Let's take a look at a few examples of constants:

const float withholding_rate = 0.8;
const char prompt = ‘y‘,
answer[] = “yes”;
const int maxpeople = 15,
inchperft = 12;
speed_limit = 55;