C-Lab Manual PDF
C-Lab Manual PDF
C-Lab Manual PDF
UNIT -1
PROGRAMMING IN C
Programming
Programming Language
9) Evaluate and examine and evaluate the answer to see it makes sense.
Introduction to C Programming
Where is C useful?
C’s ability to communicate directly with hardware makes it a powerful choice for
system programmers. In fact, popular operating systems such as Unix and Linux are
written entirely in C. Additionally, even compilers and interpreters for other languages
such as FORTRAN, Pascal, and BASIC are written in C. However, C’s scope is not
just limited to developing system programs. It is also used to develop any kind of
application, including complex business ones. The following is a partial list of areas
where C language is used:
Ø Embedded Systems
Ø Systems Programming
Ø Artificial Intelligence
Ø Industrial Automation
Ø Computer Graphics
Ø Space Research
• C is simple.
• There are only 32 keywords so C is very easy to master. Keywords are words
that have special meaning in C language.
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2. Open c:\tc\bin\tc.exe
3. A window appears
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
printf(“hello”);
}
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Note:
1. C is case sensitive
Explanation of program
#include is known as compiler directive. A compiler directive is a command to
compiler to translate the program in a certain way. These statement are not converted
into machine language but only perform some other task.
main() is a function which the staring point for complier to start compilation. So a
function must contain a main() function.
Syntactic errors and execution errors usually result in the generation of error messages
when compiling or executing a program. Error of this type is usually quite easy to find
and correct. There are some logical errors that can be very difficult to detect. Since the
output resulting from a logically incorrect program may appear to be error free. Logical
errors are often hard to find, so in order to find and correct errors of this type is known
as logical debugging. To detect errors test a new program with data that will give a
known answer. If the correct results are not obtained then the program obviously
contains errors even if the correct results are obtained.
Computer Applications: However you cannot be sure that the program is error free,
since some errors cause incorrect result only under certain circumstances. Therefore a
new program should receive thorough testing before it is considered to be debugged.
Once it has been established that a program contains a logical error, some ingenuity
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may be required to find the error. Error detection should always begin with a thorough
review of each logical group of statements within the program. If the error cannot be
found, it sometimes helps to set the program aside for a while. If an error cannot be
located simply by inspection, the program should be modified to print out certain
intermediate results and then be rerun. This technique is referred to as tracing. The
source of error will often become evident once these intermediate calculations have
been carefully examined. The greater the amount of intermediate output, the more
likely the chances of pointing the source of errors. Sometimes an error simply cannot
be located. Some C compilers include a debugger, which is a special program that
facilitates the detection of errors in C programs. In particular a debugger allows the
execution of a source program to be suspended at designated places, called break
points, revealing the values assigned to the program variables and array elements at the
time execution stops. Some debuggers also allow a program to execute continuously
until some specified error condition has occurred. By examining the values assigned to
the variables at the break points, it is easier to determine when and where an error
originates.
Linear Programming
Structured Programming
Structured programming (sometimes known as modular programming) is a subset of
procedural programming that enforces a logical structure on the program being written
to make it more efficient and easier to understand and modify. Certain languages such
as Ada, Pascal, and dBASE are designed with features that encourage or enforce a
logical program structure.
reused in other programs. After a module has been tested individually, it is then
integrated with other modules into the overall program structure.
1. Easy to write:
Modular design increases the programmer's productivity by allowing them to
look at the big picture first and focus on details later.Several Programmers can
work on a single, large program, each working on a different module. Studies
show structured programs take less time to write than standard programs.
Procedures written for one program can be reused in other programs requiring
the same task. A procedure that can be used in many programs is said to be
reusable.
2. Easy to debug:
Since each procedure is specialized to perform just one task, a procedure can be
checked individually. Older unstructured programs consist of a sequence of
instructions that are not grouped for specific tasks. The logic of such programs
is cluttered with details and therefore difficult to follow.
3. Easy to Understand:
The relationship between the procedures shows the modular design of the
program. Meaningful procedure names and clear documentation identify the
task performed by each module. Meaningful variable names help the
programmer identify the purpose of each variable.
4. Easy to Change:
Since a correctly written structured program is self-documenting, it can be
easily understood by another programmer.
Sequence
• Any valid expression terminated by a semicolon is a statement.
• Statements may be grouped together by surrounding them with a pair of curly
braces.
• Such a group is syntactically equivalent to one statement and can be inserted
where ever
• One statement is legal.
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Selection
The selection constructs allow us to follow different paths in different
situations. We may also think of them as enabling us to express decisions.
Iteration
Looping is a way by which we can execute any some set of statements more than one
times continuously .In C there are mainly three types of loops are used :
• while Loop
• do while Loop
• For Loop
The control structures are easy to use because of the following reasons:
1) They are easy to recognize
2) They are simple to deal with as they have just one entry and one exit point
3) They are free of the complications of any particular programming language
Languages like Modula-2 were designed for use with modular programming. Modular
programming has generally evolved into object-oriented programming.
1) Initialization
2) Input
3) Input Data Validation
4) Processing
5) Output
6) Error Handling
7) Closing procedure
1) Input
2) Output
3) Function
4) Mechanism
5) Internal data
1) There is only one module at the top of the structure. This is called the root or
boss module.
2) The root passes control down the structure chart to the lower level modules.
However, control is always returned to the invoking module and a finished
module should always terminate at the root.
3) There can be more than one control relationship between two modules on the
structure chart, thus, if module A invokes module B, then B cannot invoke
module A.
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Advantages
Fast and efficient
Machine oriented
No translation required
Disadvantages
Not portable
Not programmer friendly
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Assembly Language
Assembly or assembler language was the second generation of computer language. By
the late 1950s, this language had become popular. Assembly language consists of
letters of the alphabet. This makes programming much easier than trying to program a
series of zeros and ones. As an added programming assist, assembly language makes
use of mnemonics, or memory aids, which are easier for the human programmer to
recall than are numerical codes.
Assembler
An assembler is a program that takes basic computer instructions and converts them
into a pattern of bits that the computer's processor can use to perform its basic
operations. Some people call these instructions assembler language and others use the
term assembly language In other words An assembler is a computer program for
translating assembly language — essentially, a mnemonic representation of machine
language — into object code. A cross assembler (see cross compiler) produces code
for one processor, but runs on another.
Within the next few years, refinements gave rise to ALGOL (ALGOrithmic Language)
and COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language). COBOL is noteworthy because
it improved the record keeping and data management ability of businesses, which
stimulated business expansion.
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Advantages
Disadvantages
Interpreter
An interpreter is a computer program that executes other programs. This is in contrast
to a compiler which does not execute its input program (the source code) but translates
it into executable machine code (also called object code) which is output to a file for
later execution. It may be possible to execute the same source code either directly by an
interpreter or by compiling it and then executing the machine code produced.
It takes longer to run a program under an interpreter than to run the compiled code but
it can take less time to interpret it than the total required to compile and run it. This is
especially important when prototyping and testing code when an edit-interpret-debug
cycle can often be much shorter than an edit-compile-run-debug cycle.
Interpreting code is slower than running the compiled code because the interpreter must
analyses each statement in the program each time it is executed and then perform the
desired action whereas the compiled code just performs the action. This run-time
analysis is known as "interpretive overhead". Access to variables is also slower in an
interpreter because the mapping of identifiers to storage locations must be done
repeatedly at run-time rather than at compile time.
COMPILER
A program that translates source code into object code. The compiler derives its name
from the way it works, looking at the entire piece of source code and collecting and
reorganizing the instructions. Thus, a compiler differs from an interpreter, which
analyzes and executes each line of source code in succession, without looking at the
entire program. The advantage of interpreters is that they can execute a program
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Many fourth-generation languages use Structured Query Language (SQL) as the basis
for operations. SQL was developed at IBM to develop information stored in relational
databases. Examples of fourth-generation languages include PROLOG, an Artificial
Intelligence language
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UNIT-2
FEATURES OF ‘C’
C-Language keywords
Data Types
A C language programmer has to tell the system before-hand, the type of numbers or
characters he is using in his program. These are data types. There are many data types
in C language. A C programmer has to use appropriate data type as per his requirement.
C language data types can be broadly classified as
2. Character char
5. Void void
The size and range of each data type is given in the table below
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Integer Type:
Integers are whole numbers with a machine dependent range of values. A good
programming language as to support the programmer by giving a control on a range of
numbers and storage space. C has 3 classes of integer storage namely short int, int and
long int. All of these data types have signed and unsigned forms. A short int requires
half the space than normal integer values. Unsigned numbers are always positive and
consume all the bits for the magnitude of the number. The long and unsigned integers
are used to declare a longer range of values.
Floating point number represents a real number with 6 digits precision. Floating point
numbers are denoted by the keyword float. When the accuracy of the floating point
number is insufficient, we can use the double to define the number. The double is same
as float but with longer precision. To extend the precision further we can use long
double which consumes 80 bits of memory space.
Void Type:
Using void data type, we can specify the type of a function. It is a good practice to
avoid functions that does not return any values to the calling function.
Character Type:
Variable:
Variable is a name of memory location where we can store any data. It can store only
single data (Latest data) at a time. In C, a variable must be declared before it can be
used. Variables can be declared at the start of any block of code, but most are found at
the start of each function.
A declaration begins with the type, followed by the name of one or more variables. For
example,
DataType Name_of_Variable_Name;
int a,b,c;
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Variable Names
Every variable has a name and a value. The name identifies the variable, the value
stores data. There is a limitation on what these names can be. Every variable name in C
must start with a letter; the rest of the name can consist of letters, numbers and
underscore characters. C recognizes upper and lower case characters as being different.
Finally, you cannot use any of C's keywords like main, while, switch etc as variable
names.
It is conventional to avoid the use of capital letters in variable names. These are used
for names of constants. Some old implementations of C only use the first 8 characters
of a variable name.
Local Variables
Local variables are declared within the body of a function, and can only be used within
that function only.
Syntex:
Void main( ){
int a,b,c;
Void fun1()
int x,y,z;
Here a,b,c are the local variable of void main() function and it can’t be used within
fun1() Function. And x, y and z are local variable of fun1().
Global Variable
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A global variable declaration looks normal, but is located outside any of the program's
functions. This is usually done at the beginning of the program file, but after
preprocessor directives. The variable is not declared again in the body of the functions
which access it.
Syntax:
#include<stdio.h>
int a,b,c;
void main()
{
}
Void fun1()
{
}
Here a,b,c are global variable .and these variable cab be accessed (used) within a whole
program.
Constants
C constant is usually just the written version of a number. For example 1, 0, 5.73,
12.5e9. We can specify our constants in octal or hexadecimal, or force them to be
treated as long integers.
Character constants are usually just the character enclosed in single quotes; 'a', 'b', 'c'.
Some characters can't be represented in this way, so we use a 2 character sequence.
In addition, a required bit pattern can be specified using its octal equivalent.
Character constants are rarely used, since string constants are more convenient. A string
constant is surrounded by double quotes e.g. "Brian and Dennis". The string is actually
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stored as an array of characters. The null character '\0' is automatically placed at the end
of such a string to act as a string terminator.
Constant is a special types of variable which can not be changed at the time of
execution. Syntax:
Operator precedence describes the order in which C reads expressions. For example,
the expression a=4+b*2 contains two operations, an addition and a multiplication. Does
the C compiler evaluate 4+b first, then multiply the result by 2, or does it evaluate b*2
first, then add 4 to the result? The operator precedence chart contains the answers.
Operators higher in the chart have a higher precedence, meaning that the C compiler
evaluates them first. Operators on the same line in the chart have the same precedence,
and the "Associatively" column on the right gives their evaluation order.
*/%
+-
>> <<
== !=
&
^
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&&
||
Comma , left-to-right
Operators Introduction
An operator is a symbol which helps the user to command the computer to do a certain
mathematical or logical manipulations. Operators are used in C language program to
operate on data and variables. C has a rich set of operators which can be classified as
1. Arithmetic operators
2. Relational Operators
3. Logical Operators
4. Assignment Operators
5. Increments and Decrement Operators
6. Conditional Operators
7. Bitwise Operators
8. Special Operators
1. Arithmetic Operators
All the basic arithmetic operations can be carried out in C. All the operators have
almost the same meaning as in other languages. Both unary and binary operations are
available in C language. Unary operations operate on a singe operand, therefore the
number 5 when operated by unary – will have the value –5.
Arithmetic Operators
Operator Meaning
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* Multiplication
/ Division
% Modulus Operator
x+y
x-y
-x + y
a*b+c
-a * b
etc.,
Example
.
#include //include header file stdio.h
void main() //tell the compiler the start of the program
{
int numb1, num2, sum, sub, mul, div, mod; //declaration of variables
scanf (“%d %d”, &num1, &num2); //inputs the operands
}
.
Integer Arithmetic
When an arithmetic operation is performed on two whole numbers or integers than such
an operation is called as integer arithmetic. It always gives an integer as the result. Let
x = 27 and y = 5 be 2 integer numbers. Then the integer operation leads to the
following results.
x + y = 32
x – y = 22
x * y = 115
x% y=2
x/y=5
x + y = 18.0
x – y = 10.0
x * y = 56.0
x / y = 3.50
When one of the operand is real and other is an integer and if the arithmetic operation is
carried out on these 2 operands then it is called as mixed mode arithmetic. If any one
operand is of real type then the result will always be real thus 15/10.0 = 1.5
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2. Relational Operators
Often it is required to compare the relationship between operands and bring out a
decision and program accordingly. This is when the relational operator come into
picture. C supports the following relational operators.
Operato Meaning
r
== is equal to
A simple relational expression contains only one relational operator and takes the
following form.
Where exp1 and exp2 are expressions, which may be simple constants, variables or
combination of them. Given below is a list of examples of relational expressions and
evaluated values.
Relational expressions are used in decision making statements of C language such as if,
while and for statements to decide the course of action of a running program.
3. Logical Operators
C has the following logical operators, they compare or evaluate logical and relational
expressions.
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Operator Meaning
|| Logical OR
! Logical NOT
Example
a > b && x = = 10
The expression to the left is a > b and that on the right is x == 10 the whole expression
is true only if both expressions are true i.e., if a is greater than b and x is equal to 10.
Logical OR (||)
Example
a < m || a < n
The expression evaluates to true if any one of them is true or if both of them are true. It
evaluates to true if a is less than either m or n and when a is less than both m and n.
The logical not operator takes single expression and evaluates to true if the expression
is false and evaluates to false if the expression is true. In other words it just reverses the
value of the expression.
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For example
! (x >= y) the NOT expression evaluates to true only if the value of x is neither greater
than or equal to y
4. Assignment Operators
The Assignment Operator evaluates an expression on the right of the expression and
substitutes it to the value or variable on the left of the expression.
Example
x=a+b
Here var is a variable, exp is an expression and oper is a C binary arithmetic operator.
The operator oper = is known as shorthand assignment operator
Example
x + = 1 is same as x = x + 1
a=a+1 a += 1
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a=a–1 a -= 1
a = a * (n+1) a *= (n+1)
a = a / (n+1) a /= (n+1)
a=a%b a %= b
.
#define N 100 //creates a variable N with constant value 100
#define A 2 //creates a variable A with constant value 2
Output
2
4
16
The increment and decrement operators are one of the unary operators which are very
useful in C language. They are extensively used in for and while loops. The syntax of
the operators is given below
1. ++ variable name
2. variable name++
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3. – –variable name
4. variable name– –
The increment operator ++ adds the value 1 to the current value of operand and the
decrement operator – – subtracts the value 1 from the current value of operand.
++variable name and variable name++ mean the same thing when they form statements
independently, they behave differently when they are used in expression on the right
hand side of an assignment statement.
m = 5;
y = ++m; (prefix)
m = 5;
y = m++; (post fix)
Then the value of y will be 5 and that of m will be 6. A prefix operator first adds 1 to
the operand and then the result is assigned to the variable on the left. On the other hand,
a postfix operator first assigns the value to the variable on the left and then increments
the operand.
The conditional operator consists of 2 symbols the question mark (?) and the colon (:)
The syntax for a ternary operator is as follows .
exp1 is evaluated first. If the expression is true then exp2 is evaluated & its value
becomes the value of the expression. If exp1 is false, exp3 is evaluated and its value
becomes the value of the expression. Note that only one of the expression is evaluated.
For example
a = 10;
b = 15;
x = (a > b) ? a : b
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Here x will be assigned to the value of b. The condition follows that the expression is
false therefore b is assigned to x.
.
/* Example : to find the maximum value using conditional operator)
#include
void main() //start of the program
{
int i,j,larger; //declaration of variables
printf (“Input 2 integers : ”); //ask the user to input 2 numbers
scanf(“%d %d”,&i, &j); //take the number from standard input and store it
larger = i > j ? i : j; //evaluation using ternary operator
printf(“The largest of two numbers is %d \n”, larger); // print the largest number
} // end of the program
.
Output
Input 2 integers : 34 45
The largest of two numbers is 45
7. Bitwise Operators
Operator Meaning
| Bitwise OR
^ Bitwise Exclusive
8. Special Operators
C supports some special operators of interest such as comma operator, size of operator,
pointer operators (& and *) and member selection operators (. and ->). The size of and
the comma operators are discussed here. The remaining operators are discussed in forth
coming chapters.
The comma operator can be used to link related expressions together. A comma-linked
list of expressions are evaluated left to right and value of right most expression is the
value of the combined expression.
First assigns 10 to x and 5 to y and finally assigns 15 to value. Since comma has the
lowest precedence in operators the parenthesis is necessary. Some examples of comma
operator are
In for loops:
In while loops
Exchanging values.
t = x, x = y, y = t;
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The operator size of gives the size of the data type or variable in terms of bytes
occupied in the memory. The operand may be a variable, a constant or a data type
qualifier.
Example
m = sizeof (sum);
n = sizeof (long int);
k = sizeof (235L);
The size of operator is normally used to determine the lengths of arrays and structures
when their sizes are not known to the programmer. It is also used to allocate memory
space dynamically to variables during the execution of the program.
Example program that employs different kinds of operators. The results of their
evaluation are also shown in comparision .
Notice the way the increment operator ++ works when used in an expression. In the
statement c = ++a – b; new value a = 16 is used thus giving value 6 to C. That is a is
incremented by 1 before using in expression.
However in the statement d = b++ + a; The old value b = 10 is used in the expression.
Here b is incremented after it is used in the expression.
We can print the character % by placing it immediately after another % character in the
control string. This is illustrated by the statement.
c>d?1:0
Assumes the value 0 when c is less than d and 1 when c is greater than d.
During evaluation it adheres to very strict rules and type conversion. If the operands are
of different types the lower type is automatically converted to the higher type before the
operation proceeds. The result is of higher type.
Explicit Conversion
Many times there may arise a situation where we want to force a type conversion in a
way that is different from automatic conversion.
Consider for example the calculation of number of female and male students in a class
female_students
Ratio = -------------------
male_students
Since if female_students and male_students are declared as integers, the decimal part
will be rounded off and its ratio will represent a wrong figure. This problem can be
solved by converting locally one of the variables to the floating point as shown below.
The operator float converts the female_students to floating point for the purpose of
evaluation of the expression. Then using the rule of automatic conversion, the division
is performed by floating point mode, thus retaining the fractional part of the result. The
process of such a local conversion is known as explicit conversion or casting a value.
The general form is
(type_name) expression
Specifier Meaning
%c – Print a character
%d – Print a Integer
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%i – Print a Integer
%e – Print float value in exponential form.
%f – Print float value
%g – Print using %e or %f whichever is smaller
%o – Print actual value
%s – Print a string
%x – Print a hexadecimal integer (Unsigned) using lower case a – F
%X – Print a hexadecimal integer (Unsigned) using upper case A – F
%a – Print a unsigned integer.
%p – Print a pointer value
%hx – hex short
%lo – octal long
%ld – long unsigned integer.
The same mechanisms can be used to read or write data from and to files. It is also
possible to treat character strings in a similar way, constructing or analysing them and
storing results in variables. These variants of the basic input and output commands are
discussed in the next section
printf
This offers more structured output than putchar. Its arguments are, in order; a control
string, which controls what gets printed, followed by a list of values to be substituted
for entries in the control string
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printf(“ a = %d,b=%d”,a,b);.
It is also possible to insert numbers into the control string to control field widths for
values to be displayed. For example %6d would print a decimal value in a field 6
spaces wide, %8.2f would print a real value in a field 8 spaces wide with room to show
2 decimal places. Display is left justified by default, but can be right justified by putting
a - before the format information, for example %-6d, a decimal integer right justified in
a 6 space field
scanf
scanf allows formatted reading of data from the keyboard. Like printf it has a control
string, followed by the list of items to be read. However scanf wants to know the
address of the items to be read, since it is a function which will change that value.
Therefore the names of variables are preceded by the & sign. Character strings are an
exception to this. Since a string is already a character pointer, we give the names of
string variables unmodified by a leading &.
Control string entries which match values to be read are preceeded by the percentage
sign in a similar way to their printf equivalents.
getchar
getchar returns the next character of keyboard input as an int. If there is an error then
EOF (end of file) is returned instead. It is therefore usual to compare this value against
EOF before using it. If the return value is stored in a char, it will never be equal to
EOF, so error conditions will not be handled correctly.
As an example, here is a program to count the number of characters read until an EOF
is encountered. EOF can be generated by typing Control - d.
#include <stdio.h>
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main()
{ int ch, i = 0;
printf("%d\n", i);
}
putchar
putchar puts its character argument on the standard output (usually the screen).
The following example program converts any typed input into capital letters. To do this
it applies the function to upper from the character conversion library c type .h to each
character in turn.
main()
{ char ch;
gets
gets reads a whole line of input into a string until a new line or EOF is encountered. It
is critical to ensure that the string is large enough to hold any expected input lines.
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{ char ch[20];
gets(x);
puts(x);
}
puts
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puts writes a string to the output, and follows it with a new line character.
Example: Program which uses gets and puts to double space typed input.
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{ char line[256]; /* Define string sufficiently large to
store a line of input */
Note that putchar, printf and puts can be freely used together
Expression Statements
i = 0;
i = i + 1;
and
printf("Hello, world!\n");
are all expression statements. (In some languages, such as Pascal, the semicolon
separates statements, such that the last statement is not followed by a semicolon. In C,
however, the semicolon is a statement terminator; all simple statements are followed by
semicolons. The semicolon is also used for a few other things in C; we've already seen
that it terminates declarations, too.
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UNIT – 3
It is the basic form where the if statement evaluate a test condition and direct program
execution depending on the result of that evaluation.
Syntax:
If (Expression)
{
Statement 1;
Statement 2;
}
Where a statement may consist of a single statement, a compound statement or nothing
as an empty statement. The Expression also referred so as test condition must be
enclosed in parenthesis, which cause the expression to be evaluated first, if it evaluate
to true (a non zero value), then the statement associated with it will be executed
otherwise ignored and the control will pass to the next statement.
Example:
if (a>b)
{
printf (“a is larger than b”);
}
IF-ELSE Statement:
An if statement may also optionally contain a second statement, the ``else clause,'' which
is to be executed if the condition is not met. Here is an example:
if(n > 0)
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average = sum / n;
else {
printf("can't compute average\n");
average = 0;
}
NESTED-IF- Statement:
It's also possible to nest one if statement inside another. (For that matter, it's in general
possible to nest any kind of statement or control flow construct within another.) For
example, here is a little piece of code which decides roughly which quadrant of the
compass you're walking into, based on an x value which is positive if you're walking
east, and a y value which is positive if you're walking north:
if(x > 0)
{
if(y > 0)
printf("Northeast.\n");
else printf("Southeast.\n");
}
else {
if(y > 0)
printf("Northwest.\n");
else printf("Southwest.\n");
}
main()
{
int invalid_operator = 0;
char operator;
float number1, number2, result;
if(operator == '*')
result = number1 * number2;
else if(operator == '/')
result = number1 / number2;
else if(operator == '+')
result = number1 + number2;
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Switch Case
This is another form of the multi way decision. It is well structured, but can only be
used in certain cases where;
• Only one variable is tested, all branches must depend on the value of that
variable. The variable must be an integral type. (int, long, short or char).
• Each possible value of the variable can control a single branch. A final, catch
all, default branch may optionally be used to trap all unspecified cases.
Hopefully an example will clarify things. This is a function which converts an integer
into a vague description. It is useful where we are only concerned in measuring a
quantity when it is quite small.
estimate(number)
int number;
/* Estimate a number as none, one, two, several, many */
{ switch(number) {
case 0 :
printf("None\n");
break;
case 1 :
printf("One\n");
break;
case 2 :
C Lab Manual
printf("Two\n");
break;
case 3 :
case 4 :
case 5 :
printf("Several\n");
break;
default :
printf("Many\n");
break;
}
}
Each interesting case is listed with a corresponding action. The break statement
prevents any further statements from being executed by leaving the switch. Since case 3
and case 4 have no following break, they continue on allowing the same action for
several values of number.
Both if and switch constructs allow the programmer to make a selection from a number
of possible actions.
C Lab Manual
Loops
Looping is a way by which we can execute any some set of statements more than one
times continuously .In c there are mainly three types of loops are use :
• while Loop
• do while Loop
• For Loop
While Loop
Loops generally consist of two parts: one or more control expressions which (not
surprisingly) control the execution of the loop, and the body, which is the statement or
set of statements which is executed over and over.
Initialization
while( expression )
{
Statement1
Statement2
Statement3
The most basic loop in C is the while loop. A while loop has one control expression, and
executes as long as that expression is true. This example repeatedly doubles the number
2 (2, 4, 8, 16, ...) and prints the resulting numbers as long as they are less than 1000:
int x = 2;
For Loop
Our second loop, which we've seen at least one example of already, is the for loop. The
general syntax of a while loop is
for( Initialization;expression;Increments/decrements )
{
Statement1
Statement2
Statement3
Do while Loop
This is very similar to the while loop except that the test occurs at the end of the loop
body. This guarantees that the loop is executed at least once before continuing. Such a
setup is frequently used where data is to be read. The test then verifies the data, and
loops back to read again if it was unacceptable.
do
{
printf("Enter 1 for yes, 0 for no :");
scanf("%d", &input_value);
} while (input_value != 1 && input_value != 0)
C Lab Manual
We have already met break in the discussion of the switch statement. It is used to exit
from a loop or a switch, control passing to the first statement beyond the loop or a
switch.
With loops, break can be used to force an early exit from the loop, or to implement a
loop with a test to exit in the middle of the loop body. A break within a loop should
always be protected within an if statement which provides the test to control the exit
condition.
This is similar to break but is encountered less frequently. It only works within loops
where its effect is to force an immediate jump to the loop control statement.
int i;
for (i=0;i<10;i++)
{
if (i==5)
continue;
printf("%d",i);
if (i==8)
break;
}
Continue means, whatever code that follows the continue statement WITHIN the loop
code block will not be exectued and the program will go to the next iteration, in this
case, when the program reaches i=5 it checks the condition in the if statement and
executes 'continue', everything after continue, which are the printf statement, the next if
statement, will not be executed.
Break statement will just stop execution of the look and go to the next statement after
C Lab Manual
the loop if any. In this case when i=8 the program will jump out of the loop. Meaning,
it wont continue till i=9, 10.
Comment:
UNIT – 4
Arrays are widely used data type in ‘C’ language. It is a collection of elements of
similar data type. These similar elements could be of all integers, all floats or all
characters. An array of character is called as string whereas and array of integer or float
is simply called as an array. So array may be defined as a group of elements that share a
C Lab Manual
common name and that are defined by position or index. The elements of an arrays are
store in sequential order in memory.
There are mainly two types of Arrays are used:
int i;
declares a single variable, named i, of type int. It is also possible to declare an array of
several elements. The declaration
int a[10];
declares an array, named a, consisting of ten elements, each of type int. Simply
speaking, an array is a variable that can hold more than one value. You specify which
of the several values you're referring to at any given time by using a numeric subscript.
(Arrays in programming are similar to vectors or matrices in mathematics.) We can
In C, arrays are zero-based: the ten elements of a 10-element array are numbered from
0 to 9. The subscript which specifies a single element of an array is simply an integer
expression in square brackets. The first element of the array is a[0], the second element
is a[1], etc. You can use these ``array subscript expressions'' anywhere you can use the
name of a simple variable, for example:
a[0] = 10;
a[1] = 20;
a[2] = a[0] + a[1];
Notice that the subscripted array references (i.e. expressions such as a[0] and a[1]) can
appear on either side of the assignment operator. it is possible to initialize some or all
elements of an array when the array is defined. The syntax looks like this:
int a[10] = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9};
The list of values, enclosed in braces {}, separated by commas, provides the initial
values for successive elements of the array.
The subscript does not have to be a constant like 0 or 1; it can be any integral
expression. For example, it's common to loop over all elements of an array:
int i;
Arrays are a real convenience for many problems, but there is not a lot that C will do
with them for you automatically. In particular, you can neither set all elements of an
array at once nor assign one array to another; both of the assignments
a = 0; /* WRONG */
and
int b[10];
b = a; /* WRONG */
are illegal.
To set all of the elements of an array to some value, you must do so one by one, as in
the loop example above. To copy the contents of one array to another, you must again
do so one by one:
int b[10];
Multidimensional Array
int a2[5][7];
You have to read complicated declarations like these ``inside out.'' What this one says
is that a2 is an array of 5 something’s, and that each of the something’s is an array of 7
ints. More briefly, ``a2 is an array of 5 arrays of 7 ints,'' or, ``a2 is an array of array of
int.'' In the declaration of a2, the brackets closest to the identifier a2 tell you what a2 first
and foremost is. That's how you know it's an array of 5 arrays of size 7, not the other
way around. You can think of a2 as having 5 ``rows'' and 7 ``columns,'' although this
interpretation is not mandatory. (You could also treat the ``first'' or inner subscript as
``x'' and the second as ``y.'' Unless you're doing something fancy, all you have to worry
about is that the subscripts when you access the array match those that you used when
you declared it, as in the examples below.)
C Lab Manual
To illustrate the use of multidimensional arrays, we might fill in the elements of the
above array a2 using this piece of code:
int i, j;
for(i = 0; i < 5; i = i + 1)
{
for(j = 0; j < 7; j = j + 1)
a2[i][j] = 10 * i + j;
}
This pair of nested loops sets a[1][2] to 12, a[4][1] to 41, etc. Since the first dimension of
a2 is 5, the first subscripting index variable, i, runs from 0 to 4. Similarly, the second
subscript varies from 0 to 6.
We could print a2 out (in a two-dimensional way, suggesting its structure) with a
similar pair of nested loops:
for (i = 0; i < 5; i = i + 1)
{
for (j = 0; j < 7; j = j + 1)
printf ("%d\t", a2[i][j]);
printf ("\n");
}
(The character \t in the printf string is the tab character.)
Just to see more clearly what's going on, we could make the ``row'' and ``column''
subscripts explicit by printing them, too:
for(j = 0; j < 7; j = j + 1)
printf("\t%d:", j);
printf ("\n");
for(i = 0; i < 5; i = i + 1)
{
printf("%d:", i);
for(j = 0; j < 7; j = j + 1)
printf("\t%d", a2[i][j]);
printf("\n");
}
This last fragment would print
0: 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6:
0: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
1: 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
2: 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
3: 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
4: 40 41 42 43 44 45 46
C Lab Manual
STRING
String are the combination of number of characters these are used to store any word in
any variable of constant. A string is an array of character. It is internally represented in
system by using ASCII value. Every single character can have its own ASCII value in
the system. A character string is stored in one array of character type.
e.g. “Ram” contains ASCII value per location, when we are using strings and then these
strings are always terminated by character ‘\0’. We use conversion specifies %s to set
any string we can have any string as follows:-
char nm [25].
When we store any value in nm variable then it can hold only 24 character because at
the end of the string one character is consumed automatically by ‘\0’.
#include<string.h>
There are some common inbuilt functions to manipulation on string in string.h file.
these are as follows:
UNIT- 5
FUNCTIONS
Function
A function is a ``black box'' that we've locked part of our program into. The idea behind
a function is that it compartmentalizes part of the program, and in particular, that the
code within the function has some useful properties:
1. It performs some well-defined task, which will be useful to other parts of the
program.
2. It might be useful to other programs as well; that is, we might be able to reuse it
(and without having to rewrite it).
3. The rest of the program doesn't have to know the details of how the function is
implemented. This can make the rest of the program easier to think about.
4. The function performs its task well. It may be written to do a little more than is
required by the first program that calls it, with the anticipation that the calling
program (or some other program) may later need the extra functionality or
improved performance. (It's important that a finished function do its job well,
otherwise there might be a reluctance to call it, and it therefore might not
achieve the goal of reusability.)
5. By placing the code to perform the useful task into a function, and simply
calling the function in the other parts of the program where the task must be
performed, the rest of the program becomes clearer: rather than having some
large, complicated, difficult-to-understand piece of code repeated wherever the
task is being performed, we have a single simple function call, and the name of
the function reminds us which task is being performed.
6. Since the rest of the program doesn't have to know the details of how the
function is implemented, the rest of the program doesn't care if the function is
reimplemented later, in some different way (as long as it continues to perform
its same task, of course!). This means that one part of the program can be
rewritten, to improve performance or add a new feature (or simply to fix a bug),
without having to rewrite the rest of the program.
Functions are probably the most important weapon in our battle against software
complexity. You'll want to learn when it's appropriate to break processing out into
functions (and also when it's not), and how to set up function interfaces to best achieve
C Lab Manual
So what defines a function? It has a name that you call it by, and a list of zero or more
arguments or parameters that you hand to it for it to act on or to direct its work; it has a
body containing the actual instructions (statements) for carrying out the task the
function is supposed to perform; and it may give you back a return value, of a
particular type.
Here is a very simple function, which accepts one argument, multiplies it by 2, and
hands that value back:
int multbytwo(int x)
{
int retval;
retval = x * 2;
return retval;
}
On the first line we see the return type of the function (int), the name of the function
(multbytwo), and a list of the function's arguments, enclosed in parentheses. Each
argument has both a name and a type; multbytwo accepts one argument, of type int,
named x. The name x is arbitrary, and is used only within the definition of multbytwo.
The caller of this function only needs to know that a single argument of type int is
expected; the caller does not need to know what name the function will use internally to
refer to that argument. (In particular, the caller does not have to pass the value of a
variable named x.)
Next we see, surrounded by the familiar braces, the body of the function itself. This
function consists of one declaration (of a local variable retval) and two statements. The
first statement is a conventional expression statement, which computes and assigns a
value to retval, and the second statement is a return statement, which causes the function
to return to its caller, and also specifies the value which the function returns to its
caller.
The return statement can return the value of any expression, so we don't really need the
local retval variable; the function could be collapsed to-
int multbytwo(int x)
{
return x * 2;
}
How do we call a function? We've been doing so informally since day one, but now we
have a chance to call one that we've written, in full detail. Here is a tiny skeletal
program to call multby2:
C Lab Manual
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int i, j;
i = 3;
j = multbytwo(i);
printf("%d\n", j);
return 0;
}
This looks much like our other test programs, with the exception of the new line
extern int multbytwo(int);
This is an external function prototype declaration. It is an external declaration, in that it
declares something which is defined somewhere else. (We've already seen the defining
instance of the function multbytwo, but maybe the compiler hasn't seen it yet.) The
function prototype declaration contains the three pieces of information about the
function that a caller needs to know: the function's name, return type, and argument
type(s). Since we don't care what name the multbytwo function will use to refer to its first
argument, we don't need to mention it. (On the other hand, if a function takes several
arguments, giving them names in the prototype may make it easier to remember which
is which, so names may optionally be used in function prototype declarations.) Finally,
to remind us that this is an external declaration and not a defining instance, the
prototype is preceded by the keyword extern.
The presence of the function prototype declaration lets the compiler know that we
intend to call this function, multbytwo. The information in the prototype lets the compiler
generate the correct code for calling the function, and also enables the compiler to
check up on our code (by making sure, for example, that we pass the correct number of
arguments to each function we call).
Down in the body of main, the action of the function call should be obvious: the line
j = multbytwo(i);
calls multbytwo, passing it the value of i as its argument. When multbytwo returns, the
return value is assigned to the variable j. (Notice that the value of main's local variable i
will become the value of multbytwo's parameter x; this is absolutely not a problem, and is
a normal sort of affair.)
This example is written out in ``longhand,'' to make each step equivalent. The variable i
isn't really needed, since we could just as well call
j = multbytwo(3);
And the variable j isn't really needed, either, since we could just as well call
C Lab Manual
printf("%d\n", multbytwo(3));
Here, the call to multbytwo is a sub expression which serves as the second argument to
printf. The value returned by multbytwo is passed immediately to printf. (Here, as in
general, we see the flexibility and generality of expressions in C. An argument passed
to a function may be an arbitrarily complex sub expression, and a function call is itself
an expression which may be embedded as a sub expression within arbitrarily
complicated surrounding expressions.)
We should say a little more about the mechanism by which an argument is passed down
from a caller into a function. Formally, C is call by value, which means that a function
receives copies of the values of its arguments. We can illustrate this with an example.
Suppose, in our implementation of multbytwo, we had gotten rid of the unnecessary retval
variable like this:
int multbytwo(int x)
{
x = x * 2;
return x;
}
Recursive Functions
A recursive function is one which calls itself. This is another complicated idea which
you are unlikely to meet frequently. We shall provide some examples to illustrate
recursive functions.
Here is a recursive version of the Fibonacci function. We saw a non recursive version
of this earlier.
The definition of fib is interesting, because it calls itself twice when recursion is used.
Consider the effect on program performance of such a function calculating the
Fibonacci function of a moderate size number.
UNIT – 6
Pointer
a pointer is a variable that points to or references a memory location in which data is
stored. In the computer, each memory cell has an address that can be used to access that
location so a pointer variable points to a memory location we can access and change the
contents of this memory location via the pointer.
Pointer declaration:
A pointer is a variable that contains the memory location of another variable in which
data is stored. Using pointer, you start by specifying the type of data stored in the
location. The asterisk helps to tell the compiler that you are creating a pointer variable.
Finally you have to give the name of the variable. The syntax is as shown below.
type * variable name
Address operator:
Once we declare a pointer variable then we must point it to something we can do this
by assigning to the pointer the address of the variable you want to point as in the
following example:
ptr=#
The above code tells that the address where num is stores into the variable ptr. The
variable ptr has the value 21260,if num is stored in memory 21260 address then
main()
{
int *ptr;
int sum;
sum=45;
ptr=&ptr;
printf (”\n Sum is %d\n”, sum);
printf (”\n The sum pointer is %d”, ptr);
C Lab Manual
The following program illustrate the pointer expression and pointer arithmetic :
In a function declaration, the pointer are very much used . Sometimes, only with a
pointer a complex function can be easily represented and success. In a function
definition, the usage of the pointers may be classified into two groups.
C Lab Manual
1. Call by reference
2. Call by value.
Call by value:
We have seen that there will be a link established between the formal and actual
parameters when a function is invoked. As soon as temporary storage is created where
the value of actual parameters is stored. The formal parameters picks up its value from
storage area the mechanism of data transfer between formal and actual parameters
allows the actual parameters mechanism of data transfer is referred as call by value.
The corresponding formal parameter always represents a local variable in the called
function. The current value of the corresponding actual parameter becomes the initial
value of formal parameter. In the body of the actual parameter, the value of formal
parameter may be changed. In the body of the subprogram, the value of formal
parameter may be changed by assignment or input statements. This will not change the
value of the actual parameters.
void main()
{
int x,y;
x=20;
y=30;
printf(”\n Value of a and b before function call =%d %d”,a,b);
fncn(x,y);
printf(”\n Value of a and b after function call =%d %d”,a,b);
}
fncn(p,q)
int p,q;
{
p=p+p;
q=q+q;
}
Call by Reference:
The address should be pointers, when we pass address to a function the parameters
receiving. By using pointers, the process of calling a function to pass the address of the
variable is known as call by reference. The function which is called by reference can
change the value of the variable used in the call.
C Lab Manual
Pointer to arrays:
an array is actually very much similar like pointer. We can declare as int *a is an
address, because a[0] the arrays first element as a[0] and *a is also an address the form
of declaration is also equivalent. The difference is pointer can appear on the left of the
assignment operator and it is a is a variable that is lvalue. The array name cannot
appear as the left side of assignment operator and is constant.
/* A program to display the contents of array using pointer*/
main()
{
int a[100];
int i,j,n;
printf(”\nEnter the elements of the array\n”);
scanf(%d,&n);
printf(”Enter the array elements”);
for(I=0;I< n;I++)
scanf(%d,&a[I]);
printf(”Array element are”);
for(ptr=a,ptr< (a+n);ptr++)
printf(”Value of a[%d]=%d stored at address %u”,j+=,*ptr,ptr);
}
C Lab Manual
UNIT - 7
STRUCTURES
What is a Structure?
• Structure is a method of packing the data of different types.
• When we require using a collection of different data items of different data
types in that situation we can use a structure.
• A structure is used as a method of handling a group of related data items of
different data types.
A structure can be defined as a new named type, thus extending the number of available
types. It can use other structures, arrays or pointers as some of its members, though this
can get complicated unless you are careful.
Defining a Structure
A structure type is usually defined near to the start of a file using a typedef statement.
typedef defines and names a new type, allowing its use throughout the program.
typedefs usually occur just after the #define and #include statements in a file.
typedef struct {
char name[64];
char course[128];
int age;
int year;
} student;
This defines a new type student variables of type student can be declared as follows.
student st_rec;
Notice how similar this is to declaring an int or float.
The variable name is st_rec, it has members called name, course, age and year.
Each member of a structure can be used just like a normal variable, but its name will be
a bit longer. To return to the examples above, member name of structure st_rec will
behave just like a normal array of char, however we refer to it by the name .
st_rec.name
Here the dot is an operator which selects a member from a structure.
Where we have a pointer to a structure we could dereference the pointer and then use
dot as a member selector. This method is a little clumsy to type. Since selecting a
member from a structure pointer happens frequently, it has its own operator -> which
acts as follows. Assume that st_ptr is a pointer to a structure of type student We would
refer to the name member as.
Arrays of structure:
It is possible to define a array of structures for example if we are maintaining
information of all the students in the college and if 100 students are studying in the
college. We need to use an array than single variables. We can define an array of
structures as shown in the following example:
structure information
{
int id_no;
char name[20];
char address[20];
char combination[3];
int age;
}
student[100];
An array of structures can be assigned initial values just as any other array can.
Remember that each element is a structure that must be assigned corresponding initial
values as illustrated below.
struct date
{
int day;
int month;
int year;
};
struct student
{
int id_no;
char name[20];
char address[20];
char combination[3];
int age;
structure date def;
structure date doa;
}oldstudent, newstudent;
the sturucture student constains another structure date as its one of its members.
UNIT- 8
UNIONS
Union:
Unions like structure contain members whose individual data types may differ from one
another. However the members that compose a union all share the same storage area
within the computers memory where as each member within a structure is assigned its
own unique storage area. Thus unions are used to observe memory. They are useful for
C Lab Manual
application involving multiple members. Where values need not be assigned to all the
members at any one time. Like structures union can be declared using the keyword
union as follows:
union item
{
int m;
float p;
char c;
}
code;
this declares a variable code of type union item. The union contains three members
each with a different data type. However we can use only one of them at a time. This is
because if only one location is allocated for union variable irrespective of size. The
compiler allocates a piece of storage that is large enough to access a union member we
can use the same syntax that we use to access structure members. That is
code.m
code.p
code.c
are all valid member variables. During accessing we should make sure that we are
accessing the member whose value is currently stored.
For example a statement such as -
code.m=456;
code.p=456.78;
printf(“%d”,code.m);
Would prodece erroneous result..
C Lab Manual
Enum declarations
There are two kinds of enum type declarations. One kind creates a named type, as in
enum MyEnumType { ALPHA, BETA, GAMMA };
If you give an enum type a name, you can use that type for variables, function
arguments and return values, and so on:
enum MyEnumType x; /* legal in both C and C++ */
MyEnumType y; // legal only in C++
The other kind creates an unnamed type. This is used when you want names for
constants but don't plan to use the type to declare variables, function arguments, etc.
For example, you can write
enum { HOMER, MARGE, BART, LISA, MAGGIE };
If you want, you may provide explicit values for enum constants, as in
There is an implicit conversion from any enum type to int. Suppose this type exists:
On the other hand, there is not an implicit conversion from int to an enum type:
Typedefs
A typedef in C is a declaration. Its purpose is to create new types from existing types;
whereas a variable declaration creates new memory locations. Since a typedef is a
declaration, it can be intermingled with variable declarations, although common
practice would be to state typedefs first, then variable declarations. A nice
programming convention is to capitalize the first letter of a user-defined type to
distinguish it from the built-in types, which all have lower-case names. Also, typedefs
are usually global declarations.
In general, a typedef should never be used to assign a different name to a built-in type
name; it just confuses the reader. Usually, a typedef associates a type name with a more
complicated type specification, such as an array. A typedef should always be used in
situations where the same type definition is used more than once for the same purpose.
For example, a vector of 20 elements might represent different aspects of a scientific
measurement.
Vector a,b;
We know that all names in a computer usually are associated with a number. Thus, all
of the names (RED, BLUE, GREEN) for an enumerated type are "encoded" with
numbers. In eC, if you define an enumerated type, like Color, you cannot add it to an
integer; it is not type compatible. In standard C++, anything goes. Also, in eC an
enumerated type must always be declared in a typedef before use (in fact, all new types
must be declared before use).
Color a,b;
a = RED;
a = RED+BLUE; //NOT ALLOWED in eC
Notice that an enumerated type is a code that associates symbols and numbers. The
char type can be thought of as an enumeration of character codes. The default code for
an enumerated type assigns the first name to the value 0 (RED), second name 1
(BLUE), third 2 (GREEN) etc. The user can, however, override any, or all, of the
default codes by specifying alternative values.
C Lab Manual
UNIT 9
LINKED LIST
linked list is a chain of structs or records called nodes. Each node has at least two
members, one of which points to the next item or node in the list! These are defined as
Single Linked Lists because they only point to the next item, and not the previous.
Those that do point to both are called Doubly Linked Lists or Circular Linked Lists.
Please note that there is a distinct difference betweeen Double Linked lists and Circular
Linked lists. I won't go into any depth on it because it doesn't concern this tutorial.
According to this definition, we could have our record hold anything we wanted! The
only drawback is that each record must be an instance of the same structure. This
means that we couldn't have a record with a char pointing to another structure holding a
short, a char array, and a long. Again, they have to be instances of the same structure
for this to work. Another cool aspect is that each structure can be located anywhere in
memory, each node doesn't have to be linear in memory!
a linked list is data structure that consists of a sequence of data records such that in
each record there is a field that contains a reference (i.e., a link) to the next record in the
sequence.A linked list whose nodes contain two fields: an integer value and a link to
the next node.
Linked lists are among the simplest and most common data structures, and are used to
implement many important abstract data structures, such as stacks, queues, hash tables,
symbolic expressions, skip lists, and many more.
The principal benefit of a linked list over a conventional array is that the order of the
linked items may be different from the order that the data items are stored in memory or
on disk. For that reason, linked lists allow insertion and removal of nodes at any point
in the list, with a constant number of operations.
On the other hand, linked lists by themselves do not allow random access to the data, or
any form of efficient indexing. Thus, many basic operations — such as obtaining the
last node of the list, or finding a node that contains a given data, or locating the place
where a new node should be inserted — may require scanning most of the list elements.
An array allocates memory for all its elements lumped together as one block of
memory.
In contrast, a linked list allocates space for each element separately in its own block of
memory called a "linked list element" or "node". The list gets is overall structure by
using
pointers to connect all its nodes together like the links in a chain.
Each node contains two fields: a "data" field to store whatever element type the list
holds
for its client, and a "next" field which is a pointer used to link one node to the next
node.
Each node is allocated in the heap with a call to malloc(), so the node memory
continues
to exist until it is explicitly deallocated with a call to free(). The front of the list is a
5
pointer to the first node. Here is what a list containing the numbers 1, 2, and 3 might
look
like...
BuildOneTwoThree()
This drawing shows the list built in memory by the function BuildOneTwoThree() (the
full source code for this function is below). The beginning of the linked list is stored in
a
"head" pointer which points to the first node. The first node contains a pointer to the
second node. The second node contains a pointer to the third node, ... and so on. The
last
node in the list has its .next field set to NULL to mark the end of the list. Code can
access
any node in the list by starting at the head and following the .next pointers.
Operations
towards the front of the list are fast while operations which access node farther down
the
list take longer the further they are from the front. This "linear" cost to access a node is
fundamentally more costly then the constant time [ ] access provided by arrays. In this
respect, linked lists are definitely less efficient than arrays.
Drawings such as above are important for thinking about pointer code, so most of the
examples in this article will associate code with its memory drawing to emphasize the
habit. In this case the head pointer is an ordinary local pointer variable, so it is drawn
separately on the left to show that it is in the stack. The list nodes are drawn on the right
to show that they are allocated in the heap.
The Empty List — NULL
The above is a list pointed to by head is described as being of "length three" since it is
made of three nodes with the .next field of the last node set to NULL. There needs to be
some representation of the empty list — the list with zero nodes. The most common
representation chosen for the empty list is a NULL head pointer. The empty list case is
the one common weird "boundary case" for linked list code. All of the code presented
in
this article works correctly for the empty list case, but that was not without some effort.
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When working on linked list code, it's a good habit to remember to check the empty list
case to verify that it works too. Sometimes the empty list case works the same as all the
cases, but sometimes it requires some special case code. No matter what, it's a good
case
to at least think about.
Before writing the code to build the above list, we need two data types...
• Node The type for the nodes which will make up the body of the list.
These are allocated in the heap. Each node contains a single client data
element and a pointer to the next node in the list. Type: struct node
struct node {
int data;
struct node* next;
};
• Node Pointer The type for pointers to nodes. This will be the type of the
head pointer and the .next fields inside each node. In C and C++, no
separate type declaration is required since the pointer type is just the node
type followed by a '*'. Type: struct node*
BuildOneTwoThree() Function
Here is simple function which uses pointer operations to build the list {1, 2, 3}. The
memory drawing above corresponds to the state of memory at the end of this function.
This function demonstrates how calls to malloc() and pointer assignments (=) work to
build a pointer structure in the heap.
/*
Build the list {1, 2, 3} in the heap and store
its head pointer in a local stack variable.
Returns the head pointer to the caller.
*/
struct node* BuildOneTwoThree() {
struct node* head = NULL;
struct node* second = NULL;
struct node* third = NULL;
head = malloc(sizeof(struct node)); // allocate 3 nodes in the heap
second = malloc(sizeof(struct node));
third = malloc(sizeof(struct node));
head->data = 1; // setup first node
head->next = second; // note: pointer assignment rule
second->data = 2; // setup second node
second->next = third;
third->data = 3; // setup third link
third->next = NULL;
// At this point, the linked list referenced by "head"
// matches the list in the drawing.
return head;
}
C Lab Manual
The field of each node that contains address of the next node is usually called the next
link or next pointer. The remaining fields may be called the data, information, value,
or payload fields.
The head of a list is its first node, and the tail is the list minus that node (or a pointer
thereto). In Lisp and some derived languages, the tail may be called the CDR
(pronounced could-R) of the list, while the payload of the head node may be called the
A doubly-linked list whose nodes contain three fields: an integer value, the link forward
to the next node, and the link backward to the previous node
In a multiply-linked list, each node contains two or more link fields, each field being
used to connect the same set of data records in a different order (e.g., by name, by
department, by date of birth, etc.). (While doubly-linked lists can be seen as special
cases of multiply-linked list, the fact that the two orders are opposite to each other leads
to simpler and more efficient algorithms, so they are usually treated as a separate case.)
Linked lists have several advantages over arrays. Insertion of an element at a specific
point of a list is a constant-time operation, whereas insertion in an array may require
moving half of the elements, or more. While one can "delete" an element from an array
in constant time by somehow marking its slot as "vacant", an algorithm that iterates
over the elements may have to skip a large number of vacant slots.
Moreover, arbitrarily many elements may be inserted into a linked list, limited only by
the total memory available; while an array will eventually fill up, and then have to be
resized — an expensive operation, that may not even be possible if memory is
fragmented. Similarly, an array from which many elements are removed may have to
be resized in order to avoid wasting too much space.
On the other hand, arrays allow random access, while linked lists allow only sequential
access to elements. Singly-linked lists, in fact, can only be traversed in one direction.
This makes linked lists unsuitable for applications where it's useful to look up an
element by its index quickly, such as heap sort. Sequential access on arrays is also
faster than on linked lists on many machines, because they have greater locality of
reference and thus profit more from processor caching.
Another disadvantage of linked lists is the extra storage needed for references, which
often makes them impractical for lists of small data items such as characters or Boolean
values. It can also be slow, and with a naïve allocator, wasteful, to allocate memory
separately for each new element, a problem generally solved using memory pools.
Some hybrid solutions try to combine the advantages of the two representations.
Unrolled linked lists store several elements in each list node, increasing cache
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performance while decreasing memory overhead for references. CDR coding does both
these as well, by replacing references with the actual data referenced, which extends off
the end of the referencing record.
A good example that highlights the pros and cons of using arrays vs. linked lists is by
implementing a program that resolves the Josephus problem. The Josephus problem is
an election method that works by having a group of people stand in a circle. Starting at
a predetermined person, you count around the circle n times. Once you reach the nth
person, take them out of the circle and have the members close the circle. Then count
around the circle the same n times and repeat the process, until only one person is left.
That person wins the election. This shows the strengths and weaknesses of a linked list
vs. an array, because if you view the people as connected nodes in a circular linked list
then it shows how easily the linked list is able to delete nodes (as it only has to
rearrange the links to the different nodes). However, the linked list will be poor at
finding the next person to remove and will need to recurse through the list until it finds
that person. An array, on the other hand, will be poor at deleting nodes (or elements) as
it cannot remove one node without individually shifting all the elements up the list by
one. However, it is exceptionally easy to find the nth person in the circle by directly
referencing them by their position in the array.
The list ranking problem concerns the efficient conversion of a linked list
representation into an array. Although trivial for a conventional computer, solving this
problem by a parallel algorithm is complicated and has been the subject of much
research.
For one thing, a simply-linked linear list is a recursive data structure, because it
contains a pointer to a smaller object of the same type. For that reason, many
operations on simply-linked linear lists (such as merging two lists, or enumerating the
elements in reverse order) often have very simple recursive algorithms, much simpler
than any solution using iterative commands. While one can adapt those recursive
solutions for doubly-linked and circularly-linked lists, the procedures generally need
extra arguments and more complicated base cases.
Linear simply-linked lists also allow tail-sharing, the use of a common final portion of
sub-list as the terminal portion of two different lists. In particular, if a new node is
added at the beginning of a list, the former list remains available as the tail of the new
one — a simple example of a persistent data structure. Again, this is not true with the
other variants: a node may never belong to two different circular or doubly-linked lists.
every proper list ends with a link to a special node, denoted by nil or (), whose CAR
and CDR links point to itself. Thus a Lisp procedure can safely take the CAR or CDR of
any list.
Indeed, the advantages of the fancy variants are often limited to the complexity of the
algorithms, not in their efficiency. A circular list, in particular, can usually be emulated
by a linear list together with two variables that point to the first and last nodes, at no
extra cost.
With a circular list, a pointer to the last node gives easy access also to the first node, by
following one link. Thus, in applications that require access to both ends of the list
(e.g., in the implementation of a queue), a circular structure allows one to handle the
sructure by a single pointer, instead of two.
A circular list can be split into two circular lists, in constant time, by giving the
addresses of the last node of each piece. The operation consists in swapping the
contents of the link fields of those two nodes. Applying the same operation to any two
nodes nodes in two distinct lists joins the two list into one. This property greatly
simplifies some algorithms and data structures, such as the quad-edge and face-edge.
The simplest representation for an empty circular list (when such thing makes sense)
has no nodes, and is represented by a null pointer. With this choice, many algorithms
have to test for this special case, and handle it separately. By contrast, the use of null to
denote an empty linear list is more natural and often creates fewer special cases.
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However, sentinel nodes use up extra space (especially in applications that use many
short lists), and they may complicate other operations (such as the creation of a new
empty list).
However, if the circular list is used merely to simulate a linear list, one may avoid some
of this complexity by adding a single sentinel node to every list, between the last and
the first data nodes. With this convention, an empty list consists of the sentinel node
alone, pointing to itself via the next-node link. The list handle should then be a pointer
to the last data node, before the sentinel, if the list is not empty; or to the sentinel itself,
if the list is empty.
The same trick can be used to simplify the handling of a doubly-linked linear list, by
turning it into a circular doubly-linked list with a single sentinel node. However, in this
case, the handle should be a single pointer to the dummy node itself.
Linearly-linked lists
Singly-linked lists
Our node data structure will have two fields. We also keep a variable firstNode which
always points to the first node in the list, or is null for an empty list.
record Node {
data // The data being stored in the node
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Traversal of a singly-linked list is simple, beginning at the first node and following
each next link until we come to the end:
node := list.firstNode
while node not null {
(do something with node.data)
node := node.next
}
The following code inserts a node after an existing node in a singly linked list. The
diagram shows how it works. Inserting a node before an existing one cannot be done;
instead, you have to locate it while keeping track of the previous node.
Inserting at the beginning of the list requires a separate function. This requires updating
firstNode.
Similarly, we have functions for removing the node after a given node, and for
removing a node from the beginning of the list. The diagram demonstrates the former.
To find and remove a particular node, one must again keep track of the previous
element.
destroy obsoleteNode
}
function removeBeginning(List list) { // remove first
node
obsoleteNode := list.firstNode
list.firstNode := list.firstNode.next //
point past deleted node
destroy obsoleteNode
}
Notice that removeBeginning() sets list.firstNode to null when removing the last node
in the list.
Appending one linked list to another can be inefficient unless a reference to the tail is
kept as part of the List structure, because we must traverse the entire first list in order to
find the tail, and then append the second list to this. Thus, if two linearly-linked lists are
each of length n, list appending has asymptotic time complexity of O(n). In the Lisp
family of languages, list appending is provided by the append procedure.
Many of the special cases of linked list operations can be eliminated by including a
dummy element at the front of the list. This ensures that there are no special cases for
the beginning of the list and renders both insertBeginning() and removeBeginning()
unnecessary. In this case, the first useful data in the list will be found at
list.firstNode.next.
Circularly-linked list
In a circularly linked list, all nodes are linked in a continuous circle, without using null.
For lists with a front and a back (such as a queue), one stores a reference to the last
node in the list. The next node after the last node is the first node. Elements can be
added to the back of the list and removed from the front in constant time.
Both types of circularly-linked lists benefit from the ability to traverse the full list
beginning at any given node. This often allows us to avoid storing firstNode and
lastNode, although if the list may be empty we need a special representation for the
empty list, such as a lastNode variable which points to some node in the list or is null if
it's empty; we use such a lastNode here. This representation significantly simplifies
adding and removing nodes with a non-empty list, but empty lists are then a special
case.
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circularly-linked lists
Assuming that someNode is some node in a non-empty circular simply-linked list, this
code iterates through that list starting with someNode:
function iterate(someNode)
if someNode ≠ null
node := someNode
do
do something with node.value
node := node.next
while node ≠ someNode
Notice that the test "while node ≠ someNode" must be at the end of the loop. If it were
replaced by the test "" at the beginning of the loop, the procedure would fail whenever
the list had only one node.
This function inserts a node "newNode" into a circular linked list after a given node
"node". If "node" is null, it assumes that the list is empty.
Suppose that "L" is a variable pointing to the last node of a circular linked list (or null if
the list is empty). To append "newNode" to the end of the list, one may do
insertAfter(L, newNode)
L = newNode
insertAfter(L, newNode)
if L = null
L = newNode
As an example, consider the following linked list record that uses arrays instead of
pointers:
record Entry {
integer next; // index of next entry in array
integer prev; // previous entry (if double-linked)
string name;
real balance;
}
By creating an array of these structures, and an integer variable to store the index of the
first element, a linked list can be built:
integer listHead;
Entry Records[1000];
Links between elements are formed by placing the array index of the next (or previous)
cell into the Next or Prev field within a given element. For example:
In the above example, ListHead would be set to 2, the location of the first entry in the
list. Notice that entry 3 and 5 through 7 are not part of the list. These cells are available
for any additions to the list. By creating a ListFree integer variable, a free list could be
created to keep track of what cells are available. If all entries are in use, the size of the
array would have to be increased or some elements would have to be deleted before
new entries could be stored in the list.
The following code would traverse the list and display names and account balance:
i := listHead;
while i >= 0 { '// loop through the list
print i, Records[i].name, Records[i].balance // print entry
i = Records[i].next;
}
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• The linked list is relocatable, meaning it can be moved about in memory at will,
and it can also be quickly and directly serialized for storage on disk or transfer
over a network.
• Especially for a small list, array indexes can occupy significantly less space
than a full pointer on many architectures.
• Locality of reference can be improved by keeping the nodes together in memory
and by periodically rearranging them, although this can also be done in a
general store.
• Naïve dynamic memory allocators can produce an excessive amount of
overhead storage for each node allocated; almost no allocation overhead is
incurred per node in this approach.
• Seizing an entry from a pre-allocated array is faster than using dynamic memory
allocation for each node, since dynamic memory allocation typically requires a
search for a free memory block of the desired size.
This approach has one main disadvantage, however: it creates and manages a private
memory space for its nodes. This leads to the following issues:
For these reasons, this approach is mainly used for languages that do not support
dynamic memory allocation. These disadvantages are also mitigated if the maximum
size of the list is known at the time the array is created.
Language support
Many programming languages such as Lisp and Scheme have singly linked lists built
in. In many functional languages, these lists are constructed from nodes, each called a
cons or cons cell. The cons has two fields: the car, a reference to the data for that node,
and the cdr, a reference to the next node. Although cons cells can be used to build other
data structures, this is their primary purpose.
In languages that support Abstract data types or templates, linked list ADTs or
templates are available for building linked lists. In other languages, linked lists are
typically built using references together with records. Here is a complete example in C:
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struct node
{
int data;
struct node *next; /* pointer to next element in
list */
};
return *p;
}
int main(void)
{
struct node *n = NULL;
return 0;
C Lab Manual
UNIT - 10
FILE MANAGEMENT
What is a File?
Abstractly, a file is a collection of bytes stored on a secondary storage device, which is
generally a disk of some kind. The collection of bytes may be interpreted, for example,
as characters, words, lines, paragraphs and pages from a textual document; fields and
records belonging to a database; or pixels from a graphical image. The meaning
attached to a particular file is determined entirely by the data structures and operations
used by a program to process the file. It is conceivable (and it sometimes happens) that
a graphics file will be read and displayed by a program designed to process textual data.
The result is that no meaningful output occurs (probably) and this is to be expected. A
file is simply a machine decipherable storage media where programs and data are
stored for machine usage.
Essentially there are two kinds of files that programmers deal with text files and binary
files. These two classes of files will be discussed in the following sections.
Similarly, since text files only process characters, they can only read or write data one
character at a time. (In C Programming Language, Functions are provided that deal
with lines of text, but these still essentially process data one character at a time.) A text
stream in C is a special kind of file. Depending on the requirements of the operating
system, newline characters may be converted to or from carriage-return/linefeed
combinations depending on whether data is being written to, or read from, the file.
Other character conversions may also occur to satisfy the storage requirements of the
operating system. These translations occur transparently and they occur because the
programmer has signalled the intention to process a text file.
Binary files
A binary file is no different to a text file. It is a collection of bytes. In C Programming
Language a byte and a character are equivalent. Hence a binary file is also referred to
as a character stream, but there are two essential differences.
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1. No special processing of the data occurs and each byte of data is transferred to
or from the disk unprocessed.
2. C Programming Language places no constructs on the file, and it may be read
from, or written to, in any manner chosen by the programmer.
Binary files can be either processed sequentially or, depending on the needs of the
application, they can be processed using random access techniques. In C Programming
Language, processing a file using random access techniques involves moving the
current file position to an appropriate place in the file before reading or writing data.
This indicates a second characteristic of binary files
– they a generally processed using read and write operations simultaneously.
For example, a database file will be created and processed as a binary file. A record
update operation will involve locating the appropriate record, reading the record into
memory, modifying it in some way, and finally writing the record back to disk at its
appropriate location in the file. These kinds of operations are common to many binary
files, but are rarely found in applications that process text files.
In order to create files we have to learn about File I/O i.e. how to write data into a file
and how to read data from a file. We will start this section with an example of writing
data to a file. We begin as before with the include statement for stdio.h, then define
some variables for use in the example including a rather strange looking new type.
The type FILE is used for a file variable and is defined in the stdio.h file. It is used to
define a file pointer for use in file operations. Before we can write to a file, we must
open it. What this really means is that we must tell the system that we want to write to a
file and what the file name is. We do this with the fopen() function illustrated in the
first line of the program. The file pointer, fp in our case, points to the file and two
arguments are required in the parentheses, the file name first, followed by the file type.
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The file name is any valid DOS file name, and can be expressed in upper or lower case
letters, or even mixed if you so desire. It is enclosed in double quotes. For this example
we have chosen the name TENLINES.TXT. This file should not exist on your disk at
this time. If you have a file with this name, you should change its name or move it
because when we execute this program, its contents will be erased. If you don’t
have a file by this name, that is good because we will create one and put some data into
it. You are permitted to include a directory with the file name. The directory must, of
course, be a valid directory otherwise an error will occur. Also, because of the way C
handles literal strings, the directory separation character ‘\’ must be written
twice. For example, if the file is to be stored in the \PROJECTS sub directory then the
file name should be entered as “\\PROJECTS\\TENLINES.TXT”. The second
parameter is the file attribute and can be any of three letters, r, w, or a, and must be
lower case.
Reading (r)
When an r is used, the file is opened for reading, a w is used to indicate a file to be used
for writing, and an indicates that you desire to append additional data to the data
already in an existing file. Most C compilers have other file attributes available; check
your Reference Manual for details. Using the r indicates that the file is assumed to be a
text file. Opening a file for reading requires that the file already exist. If it does not
exist, the file pointer will be set to NULL and can be checked by the program.
Here is a small program that reads a file and display its contents on screen. /* Program to
display the contents of a file on screen */
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{
FILE *fopen(), *fp;
int c;
fp = fopen("prog.c","r");
c = getc(fp) ;
while (c!= EOF)
{
putchar(c);
c = getc(fp);
}
fclose(fp);
}
Writing (w)
When a file is opened for writing, it will be created if it does not already exist and it
will be reset if it does, resulting in the deletion of any data already there. Using the w
indicates that the file is assumed to be a text file.
C Lab Manual
Here is the program to create a file and write some data into the file.
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
FILE *fp;
file = fopen("file.txt","w");
/*Create a file and add text*/
fprintf(fp,"%s","This is just an example :)"); /*writes data to the file*/
fclose(fp); /*done!*/
return 0;
}
Appending (a):
When a file is opened for appending, it will be created if it does not already exist and it
will be initially empty. If it does exist, the data input point will be positioned at the end
of the present data so that any new data will be added to any data that already exists in
the file. Using the a indicates that the file is assumed to be a text file.
Here is a program that will add text to a file which already exists and there is some text
in the file.
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
FILE *fp
file = fopen("file.txt","a");
fprintf(fp,"%s","This is just an example :)"); /*append some text*/
fclose(fp);
return 0;
}
The job of actually outputting to the file is nearly identical to the outputting we have
already done to the standard output device. The only real differences are the new
function names and the addition of the file pointer as one of the function arguments. In
the example program, fprintf replaces our familiar printf function name, and the file
pointer defined earlier is the first argument within the parentheses. The remainder of
the statement looks like, and in fact is identical to, the printf statement.
Closing a file
To close a file you simply use the function fclose with the file pointer in the
parentheses. Actually, in this simple program, it is not necessary to close the file
C Lab Manual
because the system will close all open files before returning to DOS, but it is good
programming practice for you to close all files in spite of the fact that they will be
closed automatically, because that would act as a reminder to you of what files are open
at the end of each program.
You can open a file for writing, close it, and reopen it for reading, then close it, and
open it again for appending, etc. Each time you open it, you could use the same file
pointer, or you could use a different one. The file pointer is simply a tool that you use
to point to a file and you decide what file it will point to. Compile and run this program.
When you run it, you will not get any output to the monitor because it doesn’t
generate any. After running it, look at your directory for a file named TENLINES.TXT
and type it; that is where your output will be. Compare the output with that specified in
the program; they should agree! Do not erase the file named TENLINES.TXT yet; we
will use it in
some of the other examples in this section.
Now for our first program that reads from a file. This program begins with the familiar
include, some data definitions, and the file opening statement which should require no
explanation except for the fact that an r is used here because we want to read it.
#include <stdio.h>
main( )
{
FILE *fp;
char c;
funny = fopen("TENLINES.TXT", "r");
if (fp == NULL)
printf("File doesn't exist\n");
else {
do {
c = getc(fp); /* get one character from the file
*/
putchar(c); /* display it on the monitor
*/
} while (c != EOF); /* repeat until EOF (end of file)
*/
}
fclose(fp);
}
In this program we check to see that the file exists, and if it does, we execute the main
body of the program. If it doesn’t, we print a message and quit. If the file does not exist,
the system will set the pointer equal to NULL which we can test. The main body of the
program is one do while loop in which a single character is read from the file and
C Lab Manual
output to the monitor until an EOF (end of file) is detected from the input file. The file
is then closed and the program is terminated. At this point, we have the potential for
one of the most common and most perplexing problems of programming in C. The
variable returned from the getc function is a character, so we can use a char variable for
this purpose. There is a problem that could develop here if we happened to use an
unsigned char however, because C usually returns a minus one for an EOF - which an
unsigned char type variable is not
capable of containing. An unsigned char type variable can only have the values of zero
to 255, so it will return a 255 for a minus one in C. This is a very frustrating problem to
try to find. The program can never find the EOF and will therefore never terminate the
loop. This is easy to prevent: always have a char or int type variable for use in returning
an EOF. There is another problem with this program but we will worry about it when
we get to the next program and solve it with the one following that.
After you compile and run this program and are satisfied with the results, it would be a
good exercise to change the name of TENLINES.TXT and run the program again to see
that the NULL test actually works as stated. Be sure to change the name back because
we are still not finished with TENLINES.TXT.
C Lab Manual
UNIT 11
C - PREPROCESSOR
Overview
The C preprocessor, often known as cpp, is a macro processor that is used
automatically by the C compiler to transform your program before compilation. It is
called a macro processor because it allows you to define macros, which are brief
abbreviations for longer constructs.
The C preprocessor is intended to be used only with C, C++, and Objective-C source
code. In the past, it has been abused as a general text processor. It will choke on input
which does not obey C's lexical rules. For example, apostrophes will be interpreted as
the beginning of character constants, and cause errors. Also, you cannot rely on it
preserving characteristics of the input which are not significant to C-family languages.
If a Makefile is preprocessed, all the hard tabs will be removed, and the Makefile will
not work.
Having said that, you can often get away with using cpp on things which are not C.
Other Algol-ish programming languages are often safe (Pascal, Ada, etc.) So is
assembly, with caution. -traditional-cpp mode preserves more white space, and is
otherwise more permissive. Many of the problems can be avoided by writing C or C++
style comments instead of native language comments, and keeping macros simple
Include Syntax
Both user and system header files are included using the preprocessing directive
`#include'. It has two variants:
#include <file>
This variant is used for system header files. It searches for a file named file in a
standard list of system directories. You can prepend directories to this list with
the -I option (see Invocation).
#include "file"
This variant is used for header files of your own program. It searches for a file
named file first in the directory containing the current file, then in the quote
directories and then the same directories used for <file>. You can prepend
directories to the list of quote directories with the -iquote option.
The argument of `#include', whether delimited with quote marks or angle brackets,
behaves like a string constant in that comments are not recognized, and macro names
are not expanded. Thus, #include <x/*y> specifies inclusion of a system header file
named x/*y.
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However, if backslashes occur within file, they are considered ordinary text characters,
not escape characters. None of the character escape sequences appropriate to string
constants in C are processed. Thus, #include "x\n\\y" specifies a filename
containing three backslashes. (Some systems interpret `\' as a pathname separator. All
of these also interpret `/' the same way. It is most portable to use only `/'.)
It is an error if there is anything (other than comments) on the line after the file name.
Object-like Macros
An object-like macro is a simple identifier which will be replaced by a code fragment.
It is called object-like because it looks like a data object in code that uses it. They are
most commonly used to give symbolic names to numeric constants.
You create macros with the `#define' directive. `#define' is followed by the name of the
macro and then the token sequence it should be an abbreviation for, which is variously
referred to as the macro's body, expansion or replacement list. For example,
then the C preprocessor will recognize and expand the macro BUFFER_SIZE. The C
compiler will see the same tokens as it would if you had written .
By convention, macro names are written in uppercase. Programs are easier to read
when it is possible to tell at a glance which names are macros.
The macro's body ends at the end of the `#define' line. You may continue the definition
onto multiple lines, if necessary, using backslash-newline. When the macro is
expanded, however, it will all come out on one line. For example,
#define NUMBERS 1, \
2, \
3
int x[] = { NUMBERS };
==> int x[] = { 1, 2, 3 };
The most common visible consequence of this is surprising line numbers in error
messages.
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The C preprocessor scans your program sequentially. Macro definitions take effect at
the place you write them. Therefore, the following input to the C preprocessor
foo = X;
#define X 4
bar = X;
produces
foo = X;
bar = 4;
When the preprocessor expands a macro name, the macro's expansion replaces the
macro invocation, then the expansion is examined for more macros to expand. For
example,
Notice that BUFSIZE was not defined when TABLESIZE was defined. The `#define' for
TABLESIZE uses exactly the expansion you specify—in this case, BUFSIZE—and does
not check to see whether it too contains macro names. Only when you use TABLESIZE
is the result of its expansion scanned for more macro names.
This makes a difference if you change the definition of BUFSIZE at some point in the
source file. TABLESIZE, defined as shown, will always expand using the definition of
BUFSIZE that is currently in effect:
Conditional Syntax
A conditional in the C preprocessor begins with a conditional directive: `#if', `#ifdef' or
`#ifndef'.
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• Ifdef
• If
• Defined
• Else
• Elif
Ifdef
The simplest sort of conditional is
#ifdef MACRO
controlled text
#endif /* MACRO */
This block is called a conditional group. controlled text will be included in the output
of the preprocessor if and only if MACRO is defined. We say that the conditional
succeeds if MACRO is defined, fails if it is not.
The controlled text inside of a conditional can include preprocessing directives. They
are executed only if the conditional succeeds. You can nest conditional groups inside
other conditional groups, but they must be completely nested. In other words,
`#endif' always matches the nearest `#ifdef' (or `#ifndef', or `#if'). Also, you
cannot start a conditional group in one file and end it in another.
Even if a conditional fails, the controlled text inside it is still run through initial
transformations and tokenization. Therefore, it must all be lexically valid C. Normally
the only way this matters is that all comments and string literals inside a failing
conditional group must still be properly ended.
The comment following the `#endif' is not required, but it is a good practice if there
is a lot of controlled text, because it helps people match the `#endif' to the
corresponding `#ifdef'. Older programs sometimes put MACRO directly after the
`#endif' without enclosing it in a comment. This is invalid code according to the C
standard. CPP accepts it with a warning. It never affects which `#ifndef' the
`#endif' matches.
Sometimes you wish to use some code if a macro is not defined. You can do this by
writing `#ifndef' instead of `#ifdef'. One common use of `#ifndef' is to include
code only the first time a header file is included. See Once-Only Headers.
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If
The `#if' directive allows you to test the value of an arithmetic expression, rather than
the mere existence of one macro. Its syntax is
#if expression
controlled text
#endif /* expression */
• Integer constants.
• Character constants, which are interpreted as they would be in normal code.
• Arithmetic operators for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, bitwise
operations, shifts, comparisons, and logical operations (&& and ||). The latter
two obey the usual short-circuiting rules of standard C.
• Macros. All macros in the expression are expanded before actual computation
of the expression's value begins.
• Uses of the defined operator, which lets you check whether macros are defined
in the middle of an `#if'.
• Identifiers that are not macros, which are all considered to be the number zero.
This allows you to write #if MACRO instead of #ifdef MACRO, if you know that
MACRO, when defined, will always have a nonzero value. Function-like
macros used without their function call parentheses are also treated as zero.
Defined
The special operator defined is used in `#if' and `#elif' expressions to test whether a
certain name is defined as a macro. defined name and defined (name) are both
expressions whose value is 1 if name is defined as a macro at the current point in the
program, and 0 otherwise. Thus, #if defined MACRO is precisely equivalent to
#ifdef MACRO.
defined is useful when you wish to test more than one macro for existence at once. For
example,
can generally be simplified to just #if BUFSIZE >= 1024, since if BUFSIZE is not
defined, it will be interpreted as having the value zero.
If the defined operator appears as a result of a macro expansion, the C standard says
the behavior is undefined. GNU cpp treats it as a genuine defined operator and
evaluates it normally. It will warn wherever your code uses this feature if you use the
command-line option -pedantic, since other compilers may handle it differently.
Else
The `#else' directive can be added to a conditional to provide alternative text to be used
if the condition fails. This is what it looks like:
#if expression
text-if-true
#else /* Not expression */
text-if-false
#endif /* Not expression */
Elif
One common case of nested conditionals is used to check for more than two possible
alternatives. For example, you might have
#if X == 1
...
#else /* X != 1 */
#if X == 2
...
#else /* X != 2 */
...
#endif /* X != 2 */
#endif /* X != 1 */
#if X == 1
...
#elif X == 2
...
#else /* X != 2 and X != 1*/
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...
#endif /* X != 2 and X != 1*/
`#elif' stands for “else if”. Like `#else', it goes in the middle of a conditional group and
subdivides it; it does not require a matching `#endif' of its own. Like `#if', the `#elif'
directive includes an expression to be tested. The text following the `#elif' is processed
only if the original `#if'-condition failed and the `#elif' condition succeeds.
More than one `#elif' can go in the same conditional group. Then the text after each
`#elif' is processed only if the `#elif' condition succeeds after the original `#if' and all
previous `#elif' directives within it have failed.
`#else' is allowed after any number of `#elif' directives, but `#elif' may not follow
`#else'.