Going from BASIC to C

178 Pages·13.434 MB·English

by  Traister, Robert J

C
Going from BASIC to
Robert J. Traister
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ROBERT TRAISTER
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Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NewJersey 07632

CONTENTS
PREFACE
vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ix
INTRODUCTION xi
CHAPTER
1
C PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
/
CHAPTER 2
THE LATTICE C-COMPILER 9
CHAPTER 3
CONSOLE INPUT/OUTPUTCONVERSIONS 16
CHAPTER4
C LANGUAGE STATEMENTS 42
CHAPTER 5
STRING MANIPULATION IN C 69
CHAPTER 6
C LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS 82
CHAPTER 7
C PROGRAM FORMATAND MISTAKES 700
Contents
CHAPTER 8
CHARACTERS, CONVERSION, AND CONFUSION, 777
CHAPTER 9
MIMICKING BASIC STATEMENTS AND FUNCTIONS IN C 124
CHAPTER 10
C LANGUAGE FILEKEEPING 143
SUMMATION 760
INDEX 161
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PREFACE
This book is written especially for the BASIC language programmer who is
contemplating or presently making the switch to C language. The reasons
forlearningtoprograminCaremany.Theseincludetheincreasedflexibility
of the language, the speed of execution, and the fact thatChasbeencalled
the best possible language available today for microcomputers. Without a
doubt, it isveryadvantageoustoknowhowtoprograminC.Theportability
of this language from machine to machine means that once you know how
to program in C, you can bring most of your programs up on nearly any
microcomputerforwhichaCcompilerisavailable.
BASICprogrammersseemtohavethemostdifficultyinmakingthetran-
sition to C. There are manyreasonsforthis,butpossiblythemostprevalent
oneisthelackofprintedinformationdesignedespeciallytohelpBASICpro-
grammersmakethetransition.Inthepast,Chasbeenthetoolofthesystem
level programmer and software designer.Inotherwords,Chasbeenmoreor
lessrestrictedtotheworldoftheprofessionalprogrammer.Ontheotherhand,
BASIC enjoyspopularityinnearlyeveryfieldofcomputerprogramming.
If you know how to program in BASIC and are capable of usingmost
or all of the statements and functions available in this language, moving up
to C should not present tremendous difficulty, provided you have theright
instruction. The C language "Bible" is The C Programming Language by
Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie. These authors were intimately
involved in the development of C. However, even the advanced BASICpro-
grammer will probably have a great deal of difficulty sifting through the
information presented in their book.Thereasonforthisisthattheaudience
for which this book was written was devoid of BASIC programmers. The
book was never meant to be a tutorial, but rather a reference manual toC.
However, once you are introduced to Cthroughapropertutorial,thisbook
becomesaninvaluableaid.
Goingfrom BASIC to C isanintroductorytutorialandreferenceguide
specifically for BASIC programmers who are making the transition from
BASIC to C. This book contains a large number of BASIC programs and
their C language program equivalents. Hopefully, this book will serve as a
reference guide to programmers who are more accustomed to thinking in
BASIC thaninC.ByseeingspecificBASICprogramsandtheircloseorexact
C language counterparts included in these pages, the reader should gain a
quicker and better grasp ofC becausethelatteristaughtintheenvironment
of BASIC, a conventional reference point for all BASIC programmers. It is
the hope of the author that this text willmakeyourtransitionfromBASIC
toCapleasantlearningexperience.
RobertJ. Traister
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author would like to acknowledge and thank Lifeboat Associates, Inc.
for supplying theLatticeC-Compiler(Version2.0)tobeusedasamodelfor
this book. Additionally, this company providedtechnicalassistanceatevery
stepoftheway.