Introduction of C Language
C is a general-purpose, procedural programming language. It was initially developed by Dennis Ritchie in the year 1972 at the Bell Telephone Laboratories . It was mainly developed as a system programming language to write an operating system. The main features of C language include low-level access to memory, a simple set of keywords, and clean style, these features make C language suitable for system programmings like an operating system or compiler development.
Basic Function of C Language
C programming language is a MUST for students and working professionals to become a great Software Engineer specially when they are working in Software Development Domain. I will list down some of the key advantages of learning C Programming:
Easy to learn
Structured language
It produces efficient programs
It can handle low-level activities
It can be compiled on a variety of computer platforms
Facts about C
C was invented to write an operating system called UNIX.
C is a successor of B language which was introduced around the early 1970s.
The language was formalized in 1988 by the American National Standard Institute (ANSI).
The UNIX OS was totally written in C.
Today C is the most widely used and popular System Programming Language.
Most of the state-of-the-art software have been implemented using C.
History of C Programming
The C programming language came out of Bell Labs in the early 1970s. According to the Bell Labs paper The Development of the C Language by Dennis Ritchie, “The C programming language was devised in the early 1970s as a system implementation language for the nascent Unix operating system. Derived from the language BCPL, it evolved a type structure; created on a tiny machine as a tool to improve a meager programming environment.” Originally, Ken Thompson, a Bell Labs employee, desired to make a programming language for the new Unix platform. Thompson modified the BCPL system language and created B. However, not many utilities were ever written in B due to its slow nature and inability to take advantage of PDP-11 features in the operating system. This led to Ritchie improving on B, and thus creating C. Language | Year | Developed By |
---|
Algol | 1960 | International Group |
BCPL | 1967 | Martin Richard |
B | 1970 | Ken Thompson |
Traditional C | 1972 | Dennis Ritchie |
K & R C | 1978 | Kernighan & Dennis Ritchie |
ANSI C | 1989 | ANSI Committee |
ANSI/ISO C | 1990 | ISO Committee |
C99 | 1999 | Standardization Committee |
Features of C Language
C is the widely used language. It provides many features that are given below.
- Simple
- Machine Independent or Portable
- Mid-level programming language
- structured programming language
- Rich Library
- Memory Management
- Fast Speed
- Pointers
- Recursion
- Extensible
Flow Control Structure of Programming