Lecture 04 Programming C for Beginners 001

6.087 Lecture 4 – January 14, 2010
Review
Control ﬂow
I/O
Standard I/O
String I/O
File I/O
1

Blocks
• Blocks combine multiple statements into a single unit.
• Can be used when a single statement is expected.
• Creates a local scope (variables declared inside are local
to the block).
• Blocks can be nested.
{
in t x =0;
{
int y=0; / ∗ both x and y v i s i b l e ∗ /
}
/ ∗ only x v i s i b l e ∗ /
}
1

Conditional blocks
if ... else..else if is used for conditional branching of execution
i f ( cond )
{
/ ∗ code executed i f cond i s tru e ∗ /
}
else
{
/ ∗ code executed i f cond i s fa l s e ∗ /
}
2

Conditional blocks
switch..case is used to test multiple conditions (more efﬁcient
than if else ladders).
switch ( opt )
{
case ’A’ :
/ ∗ execute i f opt == ’A ’ ∗ /
break ;
case ’B’ :
case ’C’ :
/ ∗ execute i f opt == ’B ’ | | opt == ’C ’ ∗ /
default :
}
3

Iterative blocks
• while loop tests condition before execution of the block.
• do..while loop tests condition after execution of the block.
• for loop provides initialization, testing and iteration together.
4

Review
Control ﬂow
I/O
Standard I/O
String I/O
File I/O
5

goto
• goto allows you to jump unconditionally to arbitrary part of
your code (within the same function).
• the location is identiﬁed using a label.
• a label is a named location in the code. It has the same
form as a variable followed by a ’:’
s t a r t :
{
i f ( cond )
goto outside ;
/ ∗ some code ∗ /
goto s t a r t ;
}
outside :
/ ∗ outside block ∗ /
5

Spaghetti code
Dijkstra. Go To Statement Considered Harmful.
Communications of the ACM 11(3),1968
• Excess use of goto creates sphagetti code.
• Using goto makes code harder to read and debug.
• Any code that uses goto can be written without using one.
6

error handling
Language like C++ and Java provide exception mechanism to
recover from errors. In C, goto provides a convenient way to exit
from nested blocks.
cont _flag =1;
for ( . . )
for ( . . ) {
{ for ( i n i t ; c o n t _ f l a g ; i t e r )
for ( . . ) {
{ i f ( error_cond )
i f ( error_cond ) {
goto e r r o r ; c o n t _ f l a g =0;
/ ∗ skips 2 blocks ∗ / break ;
} }
} / ∗ i n n er loop ∗ /
e r r o r : }
i f ( ! c o n t _ f l a g ) break ;
/ ∗ outer loop ∗ /
}
7

Review
Control ﬂow
I/O
Standard I/O
String I/O
File I/O
8

Preliminaries
• Input and output facilities are provided by the standard
library <stdio.h> and not by the language itself.
• A text stream consists of a series of lines ending with ’n’.
The standard library takes care of conversion from
’rn’−’n’
• A binary stream consists of a series of raw bytes.
• The streams provided by standard library are buffered.
8

Standard input and output
int putchar(int)
• putchar(c) puts the character c on the standard output.
• it returns the character printed or EOF on error.
int getchar()
• returns the next character from standard input.
• it returns EOF on error.
9

Standard input and output
What does the following code do?
int main ( )
{
char c ;
while ( ( c=getchar ( ) ) ! = EOF)
{
i f ( c>=’A’ && c<=’Z’ )
c=c−’A’+’a’ ;
putchar ( c ) ;
}
return 0;
}
To use a file instead of standard input, use ’<’ operator (*nix).
• Normal invocation: ./a.out
• Input redirection: a.out < file.txt. Treats file.txt as source of
standard input.This is an OS feature, not a language
feature.
10

Standard output:formatted
int printf (char format[],arg1,arg2 ,...)
• printf() can be used for formatted output.
• It takes in a variable number of arguments.
• It returns the number of characters printed.
• The format can contain literal strings as well as format
speciﬁers (starts with %).
Examples:
p r i n t f ( "hello worldn" ) ;
p r i n t f ( "%dn" ,10); / ∗ format : %d ( intege r ) , argument :10 ∗ /
p r i n t f ( "Prices:%d and %dn" ,10 ,20);
11

printf format specification
The format specification has the following components
%[flags][width ][. precision ][ length]<type>
type:
type meaning example
d,i integer printf ("%d",10); /∗prints 10∗/
x,X integer (hex) printf ("%x",10); /∗print 0xa∗/
u unsigned integer printf ("%u",10); /∗prints 10∗/
c character printf ("%c",’A’); /∗prints A∗/
s string printf ("%s","hello"); /∗prints hello∗/
f float printf ("%f",2.3); /∗ prints 2.3∗/
d double printf ("%d",2.3); /∗ prints 2.3∗/
e,E float(exp) 1e3,1.2E3,1E−3
% literal % printf ("%d %%",10); /∗prints 10%∗/
12

printf format specification (cont.)
%[flags][width ][. precision ][ modifier]<type>
width:
format output
printf ("%d",10) "10"
printf ("%4d",10) bb10 (b:space)
printf ("%s","hello") hello
printf ("%7s","hello") bbhello
13

ﬂag:
format output
printf ("%d,%+d,%+d",10,−10) 10,+10,-10
printf ("%04d",10) 0010
printf ("%7s","hello") bbhello
printf ("%-7s","hello") hellobb
14

precision:
format output
printf ("%.2f,%.0f,1.141,1.141) 1.14,1
printf ("%.2e,%.0e,1.141,100.00) 1.14e+00,1e+02
printf ("%.4s","hello") hell
printf ("%.1s","hello") h
15

modiﬁer:
modiﬁer meaning
h interpreted as short. Use with i,d,o,u,x
l interpreted as long. Use with i,d,o,u,x
L interpreted as double. Use with e,f,g
16

Digression: character arrays
Since we will be reading and writing strings, here is a brief
digression
• strings are represented as an array of characters
• C does not restrict the length of the string. The end of the
string is speciﬁed using 0.
For instance, "hello" is represented using the array
{’h’,’e’,’l’,’l’,’0’}.
Declaration examples:
• char str []="hello"; /∗compiler takes care of size∗/
• char str[10]="hello"; /∗make sure the array is large enough∗/
• char str []={ ’h’,’e’,’l’,’l’,0};
Note: use " if you want the string to contain ".
17

Digression: character arrays
Comparing strings: the header ﬁle <string.h> provides the
function int strcmp(char s[],char t []) that compares two strings in
dictionary order (lower case letters come after capital case).
• the function returns a value <0 if s comes before t
• the function return a value 0 if s is the same as t
• the function return a value >0 if s comes after t
• strcmp is case sensitive
Examples
• strcmp("A","a") /∗<0∗/
• strcmp("IRONMAN","BATMAN") /∗>0∗/
• strcmp("aA","aA") /∗==0∗/
• strcmp("aA","a") /∗>0∗/
18

Formatted input
int scanf(char∗ format ,...) is the input analog of printf.
• scanf reads characters from standard input, interpreting
them according to format speciﬁcation
• Similar to printf , scanf also takes variable number of
arguments.
• The format speciﬁcation is the same as that for printf
• When multiple items are to be read, each item is assumed
to be separated by white space.
• It returns the number of items read or EOF.
• Important: scanf ignores white spaces.
• Important: Arguments have to be address of variables
(pointers).
19

Formatted input
int scanf(char∗ format ,...) is the input analog of printf.
Examples:
printf ("%d",x) scanf("%d",&x)
printf ("%10d",x) scanf("%d",&x)
printf ("%f",f) scanf("%f",&f)
printf ("%s",str) scanf("%s",str) /∗note no & required∗/
printf ("%s",str) scanf("%20s",str) /∗note no & required∗/
printf ("%s %s",fname,lname) scanf("%20s %20s",fname,lname)
20

String input/output
Instead of writing to the standard output, the formatted data can
be written to or read from character arrays.
int sprintf (char string [], char format[],arg1,arg2)
• The format speciﬁcation is the same as printf.
• The output is written to string (does not check size).
• Returns the number of character written or negative value
on error.
int sscanf(char str [], char format[],arg1,arg2)
• The format speciﬁcation is the same as scanf;
• The input is read from str variable.
• Returns the number of items read or negative value on
error.
21

File I/O
So far, we have read from the standard input and written to the
standard output. C allows us to read data from text/binary files
using fopen().
FILE∗ fopen(char name[],char mode[])
• mode can be "r" (read only),"w" (write only),"a" (append)
among other options. "b" can be appended for binary files.
• fopen returns a pointer to the file stream if it exists or
NULL otherwise.
• We don’t need to know the details of the FILE data type.
• Important: The standard input and output are also FILE*
datatypes (stdin,stdout).
• Important: stderr corresponds to standard error
output(different from stdout).
22

File I/O(cont.)
int fclose(FILE∗ fp)
• closes the stream (releases OS resources).
• fclose() is automatically called on all open ﬁles when
program terminates.
23

File input
int getc(FILE∗ fp)
• reads a single character from the stream.
• returns the character read or EOF on error/end of ﬁle.
Note: getchar simply uses the standard input to read a
character. We can implement it as follows:
#deﬁne getchar() getc(stdin)
char[] fgets(char line [], int maxlen,FILE∗ fp)
• reads a single line (upto maxlen characters) from the input
stream (including linebreak).
• returns a pointer to the character array that stores the line
(read-only)
• return NULL if end of stream.
24

File output
int putc(int c,FILE∗ fp)
• writes a single character c to the output stream.
• returns the character written or EOF on error.
Note: putchar simply uses the standard output to write a
character. We can implement it as follows:
#deﬁne putchar(c) putc(c,stdout)
int fputs(char line [], FILE∗ fp)
• writes a single line to the output stream.
• returns zero on success, EOF otherwise.
int fscanf(FILE∗ fp,char format[],arg1,arg2)
• similar to scanf,sscanf
• reads items from input stream fp.
25

Command line input
• In addition to taking input from standard input and ﬁles, you
can also pass input while invoking the program.
• Command line parameters are very common in *nix
environment.
• So far, we have used int main() as to invoke the main
function. However, main function can take arguments that
are populated when the program is invoked.
26

Command line input (cont.)
int main(int argc,char∗ argv[])
• argc: count of arguments.
• argv[]: an array of pointers to each of the arguments
• note: the arguments include the name of the program as
well.
Examples:
• ./cat a.txt b.txt (argc=3,argv[0]="cat" argv[1]="a.txt"
argv[2]="b.txt"
• ./cat (argc=1,argv[0]="cat")
27

MIT OpenCourseWare
http://ocw.mit.edu
6.087 Practical Programming in C
January (IAP) 2010
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Lecture 04 Programming C for Beginners 001

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