Introduction to C

(Reek, Chs. 1-2)

CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

C: History

Developed in the 1970s in conjunction with development of UNIX operating system

When writing an OS kernel, efficiency is crucial This requires low-level access to the underlying hardware:

e.g. programmer can leverage knowledge of how data is laid out in memory, to enable faster data access

UNIX originally written in low-level assembly language but there were problems:

No structured programming (e.g. encapsulating routines as functions, methods, etc.) code hard to maintain Code worked only for particular hardware not portable

CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

C: Characteristics

C takes a middle path between low-level assembly language

Direct access to memory layout through pointer manipulation Concise syntax, small set of keywords
Block structure Some encapsulation of code, via functions Type checking (pretty weak)

and a high-level programming language like Java:

CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

C: Dangers

C is not object oriented!

Cant hide data as private or protected fields You can follow standards to write C code that looks object-oriented, but you have to be disciplined will the other people working on your code also be disciplined?

C has portability issues

Low-level tricks may make your C code run well on one platform but the tricks might not work elsewhere

The compiler and runtime system will rarely stop your C program from doing stupid/bad things

Compile-time type checking is weak No run-time checks for array bounds errors, etc. like in Java
CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

Separate compilation

A C program consists of source code in one or more files Each source file is run through the preprocessor and compiler, resulting in a file containing object code Object files are tied together by the linker to form a single executable program
Source code file1.c Source code file2.c
Preprocessor/ Compiler Preprocessor/ Compiler

Object code file1.o Object code file2.o

Libraries

Linker

Executable code a.out

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Separate compilation

Advantage: Quicker compilation

When modifying a program, a programmer typically edits only a few source code files at a time. With separate compilation, only the files that have been edited since the last compilation need to be recompiled when re-building the program. For very large programs, this can save a lot of time.

CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

How to compile (UNIX)

To compile and link a C program that is contained entirely in one source file: cc program.c The executable program is called a.out by default. If you dont like this name, choose another using the o option: cc program.c o exciting_executable To compile and link several C source files: cc main.c extra.c more.c This will produce object (.o) files, that you can use in a later compilation: cc main.o extra.o more.c Here, only more.c will be compiled the main.o and extra.o files
will be used for linking.

To produce object files, without linking, use -c: cc c main.c extra.c more.c
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The preprocessor

The preprocessor takes your source code and following certain directives that you give it tweaks it in various ways before compilation. A directive is given as a line of source code starting with the # symbol The preprocessor works in a very crude, wordprocessor way, simply cutting and pasting it doesnt really know anything about C!
Your source code Enhanced and obfuscated source code Object code

Preprocessor
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Compiler
CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

A first program: Text rearranger

Input

First line: pairs of nonnegative integers, separated by whitespace, then terminated by a negative integer x1 y1 x2 y2 xn yn -1 Each subsequent line: a string of characters For each string S, output substrings of S:

Output

First, the substring starting at location x1 and ending at y1; Next, the substring starting at location x2 and ending at y2; Finally, the substring starting at location xn and ending at xn.

CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

Sample input/output

Initial input: 0 2 5 7 10 12 -1 Next input line: deep C diving Output: deeC ding Next input line: excitement! Output: exceme! continue ad nauseum Terminate with ctrl-D (signals end of keyboard input)

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CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

Use of comments
/* ** This program reads input lines from the standard input and prints ** each input line, followed by just some portions of the lines, to

** the standard output.

** ** The first input is a list of column numbers, which ends with a ** negative number. The column numbers are paired and specify ** ranges of columns from the input line that are to be printed.

** For example, 0 3 10 12 -1 indicates that only columns 0 through 3

** and columns 10 through 12 will be printed. */

Only /* */ for comments no // like Java or C++

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CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

Comments on comments

Cant nest comments within comments

/* is matched with the very next */ that comes along

Dont use /* */ to comment out code it wont work if the commented-out code contains comments

/* Comment out the following code int f(int x) { return x+42; /* return the result */ } */ This will not!

Only this will be commented out

Anyway, commenting out code is confusing, and dangerous (easy to forget about) avoid it
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Preprocessor directives
#include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <string.h>

The #include directives paste the contents of the files stdio.h, stdlib.h and string.h into your source code, at the very place where the directives appear. These files contain information about some library functions used in the program:

stdio stands for standard I/O, stdlib stands for standard library, and string.h includes useful string

manipulation functions.

Want to see the files? Look in /usr/include

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Preprocessor directives
#define MAX_COLS 20 #define MAX_INPUT 1000

The #define directives perform global replacements:

every instance of MAX_COLS is replaced with 20, and every instance of MAX_INPUT is replaced with 1000.

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CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

Function prototypes
int void read_column_numbers( int columns[], int max ); rearrange( char *output, char const *input, int n_columns, int const columns[] );

These look like function definitions they have the name and all the type information but each ends abruptly with a semicolon. Wheres the body of the function what does it actually do? (Note that each function does have a real definition, later in the program.)

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CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

Function prototypes

Q: Why are these needed, if the functions are defined later in the program anyway? A: C programs are typically arranged in top-down order, so functions are used (called) before theyre defined.

(Note that the function main() includes a call to read_column_numbers().) When the compiler sees a call to read_column_numbers() , it must check whether the call is valid (the right number and types of parameters, and the right return type). But it hasnt seen the definition of read_column_numbers() yet!

The prototype gives the compiler advance information about the function thats being called.

Of course, the prototype and the later function definition must match in terms of type information.

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CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

The main() function

main() is always the first function called in a program

execution.
int main( void ) {

void indicates that the function takes no arguments int indicates that the function returns an integer value Q: Integer value? Isnt the program just printing out some stuff and then exiting? Whats there to return? A: Through returning particular values, the program can indicate whether it terminated nicely or badly; the operating system can react accordingly.
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The printf() function

printf( "Original input : %s\n", input );

printf()

is a library function declared in <stdio.h>

Syntax: printf( FormatString, Expr, Expr...)

FormatString: String of text to print Exprs: Values to print FormatString has placeholders to show where to put the values (note: #placeholders should match #Exprs)

Placeholders:

%s (print as string), %c (print as char), %d (print as integer),

Make sure you pick the right one!

%f (print as floating-point)
Text line printed only when \n encountered Dont forget \n when printing final results

\n indicates a newline character

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CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

return vs. exit

Lets look at the return statement in main():

return EXIT_SUCCESS;

EXIT_SUCCESS is a constant defined in stdlib ; returning this value signifies successful termination. Contrast this with the exit statement in the function read_column_numbers():

puts( Last column number is not paired. ); exit( EXIT_FAILURE );

EXIT_FAILURE is another constant, signifying that something bad happened requiring termination. exit differs from return in that execution terminates immediately control is not passed back to the calling function main().
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Pointers, arrays, strings

In this program, the notions of string, array, and pointer seem to be somewhat interchangeable:

In main(), an array of characters is declared, for purposes of holding the input string:
char input[MAX_INPUT];

Yet when its passed in as an argument to the rearrange() function, input has morphed into a pointer to a character (char *):
void rearrange( char *output, char const *input,

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CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

Pointers, arrays, strings

In C, the three concepts are indeed closely related:

A pointer is simply a memory address. The type char * pointer to character signifies that the data at the pointers address is to be interpreted as a character. An array is simply a pointer of a special kind:

The array pointer is assumed to point to the first of a sequence of data items stored sequentially in memory. How do you get to the other array elements? By incrementing the pointer value.

A string is simply an array of characters unlike Java, which has a predefined String class.

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CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C

String layout and access

p
(char)

o
(char)

i
(char)

n
(char)

t
(char)

e
(char)

r
(char)

NUL
(char)

NUL is a special value indicating end-of-string

(char *)

input What is input? Its a string! Its a pointer to char! Its an array of char!

How do we get to the n? Follow the input pointer, then hop 3 to the right *(input + 3) - or input[3]

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CS 3090: Safety Critical Programming in C