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Learn C Programming A beginner's guide to learning C programming the easy and disciplined way Jeﬀ Szuhay BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI Learn C Programming Copyright © 2020 Packt Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews. Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book. Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information. Commissioning Editor: Richa Tripathi Acquisition Editor: Denim Pinto Content Development Editor: Digvijay Bagul Senior Editor: Rohit Singh Technical Editor: Pradeep Sahu Copy Editor: Safis Editing Project Coordinator: Deeksha Thakkar Proofreader: Safis Editing Indexer: Rekha Nair Production Designer: Joshua Misquitta First published: June 2020 Production reference: 1260620 Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK. ISBN 978-1-78934-991-7 www.packt.com To Jaimie, my daughter and "inload manager," this book is for you. 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At www.packt.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles, sign up for a range of free newsletters, and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books and eBooks. Contributors About the author Jeff Szuhay is the principal developer at QuarterTil2, which specializes in graphics-rich software chronographs for desktop environments. In his software career of over 35 years, he has engaged in the full range of development activities, from systems analysis and systems performance tuning to application design, and from initial development through full testing and final delivery. Throughout this time, he has taught about computer applications and programming languages at various educational levels, from elementary school to university level, as well as developing and presenting professional, on-site training. I would like to thank, first of all, my teachers who instructed, cajoled, and inspired me. Notable among these are George Novacky Ph.D. and Alan Rose Ph.D. I would also like to thank the following colleagues who had the courage to help me see where I went awry: Dave Kipp, Tim Snyder, Sam Caruso, Mark Dalrymple, Tony McNamara, Jake Penzell, and Bill Geraci. And lastly, thanks to my wife, Linda, who listened patiently through all of it. About the reviewer B. M. Harwani is the founder of Microchip Computer Education, based in Ajmer, India, which provides computer literacy in programming and web development to learners of all ages. He further helps the community by sharing the knowledge and expertise he's gained over 20 years of teaching by writing books. His recent publications include jQuery Recipes, published by Apress, Introduction to Python Programming and Developing GUI Applications with PyQT, published by Cengage Learning, The Android Tablet Developer's Cookbook, published by Addison-Wesley Professional, UNIX and Shell Programming, published by Oxford University Press, and Qt5 Python GUI Programming Cookbook and Practical C Programming, published by Packt. Packt is searching for authors like you If you're interested in becoming an author for Packt, please visit authors.packtpub.com and apply today. We have worked with thousands of developers and tech professionals, just like you, to help them share their insight with the global tech community. You can make a general application, apply for a specific hot topic that we are recruiting an author for, or submit your own idea. Table of Contents Preface 1 Section 1: C Fundamentals Chapter 1: Running Hello, World! 13 Technical requirements 13 Writing your first C program 14 Hello, world! 15 Understanding the program development cycle 16 Edit 16 Compile 18 Many C compilers for every OS 19 A note about IDEs 19 Installing a compiler on Linux, macOS, or Windows 20 Run 21 Verify 22 Repeat 23 A note about debugging 23 Creating, typing, and saving your first C program 24 Compiling your first C program 25 Running your first C program 26 Writing comments to clarify the program later 27 Some guidelines on commenting code 28 Adding comments to the Hello, world! program 30 Learning to experiment with code 31 Summary 32 Chapter 2: Understanding Program Structure 34 Technical requirements 35 Introducing statements and blocks 35 Experimenting with statements and blocks 37 Understanding delimiters 39 Understanding whitespace 41 Introducing statements 44 Introducing functions 46 Understanding function definitions 47 Exploring function identifiers 48 Exploring the function block 49 Exploring function return values 50 Passing in values with function parameters 52 Table of Contents Order of execution 57 Understanding function declarations 59 Summary 62 Chapter 3: Working with Basic Data Types 63 Technical requirements 64 Understanding data types 64 Bytes and chunks of data 67 Representing whole numbers 69 Representing positive and negative whole numbers 70 Specifying different sizes of integers 70 Representing numbers with decimals 72 Representing single characters 72 Representing Boolean true/false 73 Understanding the sizes of data types 74 The sizeof() operator 74 Ranges of values 76 Summary 78 Chapter 4: Using Variables and Assignment 79 Technical requirements 80 Understanding types and values 80 Introducing variables 81 Naming variables 82 Introducing explicit types of variables 83 Using explicit typing with initialization 83 Exploring constants 84 Literal constants 85 Defined values 87 Explicitly typed constants 88 Naming constant variables 89 Using types and assignment 89 Using explicit assignment, the simplest statement 90 Assigning values by passing function parameters 90 Assignment by the function return value 92 Summary 93 Chapter 5: Exploring Operators and Expressions 95 Technical requirements 96 Expressions and operations 96 Introducing operations on numbers 99 Considering the special issues resulting from operations on numbers 102 Understanding NaN 103 Understanding underflow NaN 103 Understanding overflow NaN 103 Considering precision 104 [ ii ] Table of Contents Exploring type conversion 104 Understanding implicit type conversion and values 104 Using explicit type conversion – casting 108 Introducing operations on characters 109 Exploring logical and relational operators 111 Bitwise operators 115 The conditional operator 116 The sequence operator 117 Compound assignment operators 118 Multiple assignments in a single expression 119 Incremental operators 120 Postfix versus prefix incrementation 120 Order of operations and grouping 122 Summary 124 Chapter 6: Exploring Conditional Program Flow 125 Technical requirements 126 Understanding conditional expressions 126 Introducing the if()… else… complex statement 127 Using a switch()… complex statement 131 Introducing multiple if()… statements 135 Using nested if()… else… statements 139 The dangling else… problem 140 Summary 143 Chapter 7: Exploring Loops and Iteration 144 Technical requirements 144 Understanding repetition 145 Understanding brute-force repetition 147 Introducing the while()… statement 150 Introducing the for()… statement 152 Introducing the do … while() statement 155 Understanding loop equivalency 157 Understanding unconditional branching – the dos and (mostly) don'ts of goto 159 Further controlling loops with break and continue 163 Understanding infinite loops 167 Summary 168 Chapter 8: Creating and Using Enumerations 169 Technical requirements 169 Introducing enumerations 170 Defining enumerations 171 Using enumerations 173 [ iii ]