C Programming Introduction

C programming is a general-purpose and procedural computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis M. Ritchie for UNIX operating system. C is a widely used and popular System Programming Language and it is a must to know C to become a great Software Engineer as C serves as the basis for many programming languages.

Why C programming?

  • Easy and Efficient
  • Structured language
  • Can handle both low-level and high-level activities
  • Can be compiled on various computer platforms

This program will teach you how to display a statement onto the output screen using the function called printf().

Sample Hello World Program

#include<stdio.h>
int main()
{
    printf("Hello World!");
    return 0;
}

Output

Hello World!

Use Cases of C language

Here let us look up some of the systems that are developed by C programming.

  • The first and foremost motive for the development of C programming is to move the Unix kernel code from assembly language to a higher-level language.
  • Most parts of Microsoft kernel and Linux are developed in C programming.
  • Mac computers are also powered by C programming.
  • C programming is also used in iOS, Android, and Windows phone kernels. Smartphones we use every day are running on C kernel as they are just the mobile adaptation of Windows, Linux, and iOS kernels.
  • Most of the powerful and popular databases like Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MySQL Server are written in C. Since databases are used in all fields like web, social networks, financial, government, and more. Hence C programming is involved in all these fields.
  • Most of the devices around you like the TV, radio, microwave and even the cars are embedded systems powered by C.

Pre-requisites

Since C is a basis for many programming languages no prior programming knowledge is required to learn C. Any programming language cannot be simply learned with a pen and paper. So, it is needed to know basic computer operations. To become a good programmer one should write and execute more codes to do so you will need a compiler to run and execute codes. A compiler is a software for converting the C source code you write with your text editor into the machine code. Most of the compilers comes with the Integrated Development Environment(IDE). Here are few compilers for C:

  • Microsoft Visual Studio
  • Turbo C
  • Orange C
  • GCC
  • CodersEditor
Installation & Setup →