What is C Programming Language?

byComputer Programming and Technology. •5:53 PM

0

C Programming Language Tutorial

C programming is a popular computer programming language which is widely used for system and application software. Despite being fairly old programming language, C programming is widely used because of its efficiency and control.
This tutorial is intended for beginners who does not have any prior knowledge or have very little knowledge of computer programming.
C language Tutorial with programming approach for beginners and professionals, helps you to understand the C language tutorial easily. Our C tutorial explains each topic with programs.
The C Language is developed for creating system applications that direct interacts to the hardware devices such as drivers, kernals etc.
C programming is considered as the base for other programming languages, that is why it is known as mother language.
In order to run a C program, you need a compiler. Compiler change source code(code written by programmer) to object code(code that computer understands) and creates executable file. There are many free and professional compilers available. For the sake of this course, GNU GCC compiler is used. All the examples in this course are tested and verified in GNU GCC compiler.

It can be defined by following ways:

C language is considered as the mother language of all the modern languages because most of the compilers, JVMs, Kernals etc. are written in C language and most of languages follows c syntax e.g. C++, Java etc.
It provides the core concepts like array, functions, file handling etc. that is being used in many languages like C++, java, C# etc.

A system programming language is used to create system softwares. C language is a system programming language because it can be used to do low level programming (e.g. driver and kernel).
It is generally used to create hardware devices, OS, drivers, kernels etc. For example, linux kernel is written in C.
It can?t be used in internet programming like java, .net, php etc.

A procedure is known as function, method, routine, subroutine etc. A procedural language specifies a series of steps or procedures for the program to solve the problem.
A procedural language breaks the program into functions, data structures etc.
C is a procedural language. In C, variables and function prototypes must be declared before being used.

A structured programming language is a subset of procedural language. Structure means to break a program into parts or blocks so that it may be easy to understand.
In C language, we break the program into parts using functions. It makes the program easier to understand and modify.

C is considered as a middle level language because it supports the feature of both low-level and high level language.
C language program is converted into assembly code, supports pointer arithmetic (low level), but it is machine independent (feature of high level).
Low level language is specific to one machine i.e. machine dependent. It is machine dependent, fast to run. But it is not easy to understand.
High Level language is not specific to one machine i.e. machine independent. It is easy to understand.