Notes On: C

Setup

We will be using the gcc compiler throughout.

Basics

Starting up

The most basic code-base for a program written in C is shown below, with annotations:

#include            // Preprocessor Directives and Declarations

int main() {                 // Initiation function
    printf("Hello World!");  // Function body
    return 0;
}

To compile and run the program, use the following commands in a terminal

> gcc hello.c -o hello
> ./hello

Here is a quick run-down of the syntax:

Variables

The standard types of variables are what you should expect, listed below, except there is no string variable type.

To declare a variable, we use the following syntax

int i;      // Single variable declaration
int i,j,k;  // Multiple variables separated with a comma
int i = 0;  // Assign a value when declaring the variable

For strings, we use a character array whose length is one more than te length of the word. This takes into account the newline at the end of the string.

#include 

char string[10] = "a string";

Variables declared outside any functions are called global variables and can be accessed by any function in the program. Variables declared inside a function are called local variables and are destroyed once the function exits. A static variable is a local variable but it's value is preserved on exit of a function, and is available for use when the function is next called.

static int name_of_static_var;

Constant variables are declared in a similar way

const float pi = 3.1415926;

Alternatively, you can use the C-proprocessor directive #define:

#define pi 3.1415926

Input & Output

Some standard library functions require a conversion specification for different types of variables.

%d  // int
%f  // float or double
%e  // float or double (in scientific notation)
%c  // character
%s  // character string

One function which uses these is printf

#include 

char str[] = "a string";

int main() {
    printf("This is %s",str);
    return 0;
}

Special characters can also be used, such as \t and \n, to indicate a tab or newline, respectively.

For integers, floats and doubles you can format the output.

int x = 5;
printf("%10.4d",x);  // prints out 0005

The . allows for precision. The number 10 puts 0005 over 10 spaces so that the number 5 is on the tenth spacing.

To capture input, from a keyboard for example, we use the fgets(str,sizeof(str),stdin) function, which takes three parameters: str is a character array, sizeof(str) is the maximum number of characters to be read (plus one for the newline), and stdin the source of the input (keyboard).

fgets() returns the whole string. To remove the newline character use

str[strlen(str)-1] = "\0";  // Set last character to `null`

To convert the text read in via fgets() we use the function sscanf(line,"%d %d %d",&num1,&num2,&num3), where line is the input from fgets(), and &num1, &num2, &num3 are points to already initiated integers.

To read input from a file, rather than a keyboard, just provide the filename in fgets()

#include 

const char FILE_NAME[] = "inputdata.dat";
      char line[100];
      int  num1, num2, num3;

int main() {
    FILE *in_file;                                              // Indicate you want a file
    in_file = fopen(FILE_NAME,"r");                             // Open the file

    fgets(line,sizeof(line),in_file);                           // Get input
    sscanf(line,"%d %d %d",&num1,&num2,&num3);                  // Convert to numbers
    printf("You inputted numbers: %d %d %d\n",num1,num2,num3);  // Print out input

    return 0;
}

Strings

There are several string specific functions which are good to know:

strcopy(new_str,str);  // Copies the string `str` to `new_str`
strcat(new_str,str);   // Adds the string `str to `new_str`
strlen(str);           // Returns the length of the string `str`

Operators

The usual mathematical operators are present: +, -, /, *, %. Note (expecially when using division) that if both operands are integers, then the output will be an integer.

The comparision operators are ==, !=, <, >, <=, >=, which return 0 or 1. Note that when comparing two real numbers it is usually better to use a tolerance:

same = (abs(a-b) < tol);

Boolean operators are &&, ||, !.

It is often useful to know the order of precedence when using many operators in one statement.

high    parentheses         ()
        unary               !, ++, --
        multiplication      *, /, %
        addition            +, -
        comparision         ==, !=, <, >, <=, >=
        and                 &&
        or                  ||
low     assignment          +=, -=, *=, /=, %=

Conditionals

Statement block are groups of code within a single set of curly braces { }.

Conditional blocks are similar to other programming languages:

if( statement1 ) {
    // Do something
} else if( statement 2 ) {
    // Do something else
} else {
    // Do another thing
}

Loops

The usual loops are present:

while( statement ) {          // While loop
    // Do something
}

do {                          // Do-While loop
    // Something
} while( statement )

for(inits; tests; actions) {  // For loop
    // Do something
}

The keywords break and continue can be used in loops.

Arrays

Just like a character array, we can have arrays which hold other types of variables, such as an integer array: int int_arr[]. Arrays are zero-index-based. Be careful not to address array elements outside of the declared array, as this will result in errors. Writing to an index outside of the declared array means writing to a random memory slot, and may cause weird things to happen!

Multi-dimensional arrays are declared such as int mul_arr[][]. Since memory is linearly addressable, matrices in C are stored in row-major order.

Functions

All functions must be declared, known as a function prototype, before the main() function. The general syntax is as follows

return_type function_name( arg1_type arg1, arg2_type arg2, ... , argn_type argn );

The return_type of a function is the variable type that the function returns. If a function doesn't return anything, set return_type to void.

#import 

int product(int a, int b);

int main() {
    int a = 2;
    int b = 3;

    printf("The product of %d and %d is %d\n", a, b, product(a,b));
    return 0;
}

int product(int a, int b) {
    return a * b;
}

Pointers

Variables can be accessed, as before, by name. When variables are passed to functions as such, in fact, only its value is passed through as a local variable. Any changes made to an argument will not affect the original variable. If you wish to change the original variable by a function, you will need to pass through a variable pointer.

Pointers are objects that points to a memory address of another object. Pointers must be declared (since they are variables that store memory addresses).

int *point;

To recall the memory address of a variable, we use the ampersand operator.

int an_integer;
int *point;

an_integer = 10;
point      = &an_integer;

To get the content of a memory address given by a pointer, we use an asterisk.

*point;  // 10

The name of an array is the same as a pointer to that array. So *array is the same as array[0], and *(array+1) is the same as array[1], etc.

Pointers allows us to allocate memory for a program at runtime, rather than compile time - this is called dynamic memory allocation. malloc stands for memory allocation and is a standard library function. It's prototype is

void *malloc(size_t nbytes);

malloc returns a generic pointer, a pointer which points to any type of object. When malloc runs out of memory space, it returns a null pointer. Hence, we need to check for this condition at each malloc call.

calloc and realloc are other dynamic memory allocation functions.

It is best to free up the memory. To do so, use the free function, and then set the relevant pointer to NULL.

#import 

int main() {
    char *array_pointer;
    array_pointer = malloc(5 * sizeof(int));  // Array of 5 integers

    if( array_pointer == NULL ) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Out of memory\n");
        exit(8);
    }

    free(array_pointer);
    array_pointer = NULL;
}

Structures

Structures allow you to organise related objects. These can be variables or functions, etc. The definition of a structure should be at the top of the program.

struct a_structure {                       // Define structure
    char a_string[];
    int  an_integer;
    int  another_integer;
}

...

struct a_structure structure_name;         // Declare a new variable

structure_name.a_string        = "hello";  // Assign values with dot-notation
structure_name.an_integer      = 5;
structure_name.another_integer = 10;

When passing a structure to a function, we usually pass a pointer to the structure, and use the arrow symbol -> to access the contents of a pointer.

char   str[];
struct a_structure *point;  // Declare pointer of variable type `a_structure`

point = &structure_name;    // Point to `structure_name`
str   = point->a_string;

Libraries

As well as the standard input/output library, we have others. Most often, you will want to use mathematical functions. These are included in the math library.

#import

To compile a program, we now need to use the -lm parameter so that the compiler knows to look for the libm.*.so library in the directory /lib/.

gcc program.c -lm -0 program

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