C programming language : 1. What is C? ‘C’ is a general-purpose, Structured Prog

C programming language : 1. What is C?
‘C’ is a general-purpose, Structured Programming Language. Its instructions consist of English terms that resemble algebraic expressions, augmented by certain English keywords such as if, else, for, do, while, etc. In this respect C resembles other high-level structured programming languages such as Pascal and FORTRAN-77. C also contains certain additional features, however, that allows it to be used at a lower level, thus bridging the gap between machine language and the more conventional high-level languages. This flexibility allows C to be used for systems programming (e.g., for writing operating systems) as well as for applications programming (e.g., for solving a complicated mathematical equations, or for designing a billing system for the customers).
1.1 Historical Development of C.
Laboratories) in 1970’s. It is an outgrowth of the two earlier languages, called BCPL and B,
After this various compilers of C were developed and used for executing C programs.
Some of them are:
Dennis Ritchie originally developed ‘C’ at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc (now AT&T Bell which were also developed at Bell Laboratories. C was largely confined for use within Bell Laboratories until 1978, when Brian Kernighan and Ritchie published a definitive description of the language.
1. Turbo C 2. Unix CC
3. Microsoft C
4. Borland C
1.2 Where C Stands?
C is characterized by the ability to write very concise source programs, due to the large number of operators included within the language. It has a relatively small instruction set: though actual implementations include extensive library functions, which enhance the basic functions. Furthermore, the language encourages users to write additional library functions of their own. Thus, the user can easily extend the features and capabilities of the languages C compilers are commonly available for computers of all sizes, and C interpreters are becoming increasingly common.
Another important characteristic of C is that its programs are highly portable, even more than any other languages. The reason for this is that C delegates most computer-dependent features to its library functions, thus every version of C is accompanied by its own set of library functions, which are written for the particular characteristics of the host computer. These library functions are relatively standardized however each individual library function is generally accessed in the same manner from one version of C to another. Therefore. most C programs can be processed on many different computers with little or no alteration.