Introduction to C

We can say that C is a general purpose language which was developed in 1970 s by Dennis.M.Richie. Its development was done in conjunction with UNIX operating system at Bell Labs. It was first implemented on the DEC PDP-11 computer in 1972.

There are various languages that are written in C like UNIX Operating system, the C compiler and all essential UNIX applications.

C language is used professionally because of its importance as it is :

• Easy to learn
• Language is in structured form
• Produces efficient programs
• Low-level activities are handled
• Computer platforms can be compiled through it

Facts about C:

• In order to write UNIX operating system C language was developed
• Around 1970 B language was introduced which was successor of C language.
• American National Standard Institute (ANSI) formalized the language in 1988.
• In 1973 UNIX language was written in C.
• C is one of the most widely and popular used language.
• Using C language various state of the art softwares have been implemented.
• Using C language now a days popular Linux OS and RDBMS MS-SQL have been written.

Why to Use C:

Initially for system development we used to use C language , especially for the programs that make up the Operating System. Some examples of C language are:

• Network Drivers
• Utilities
• Language Compilers
• Assemblers
• Text Editors
• Print Spoolers
• Databases
• Modern Programs
• Operating Systems
• Language Interpreters

C Program:

• C program can be written in many lines varying from 3 to millions.
• It can be written into one or more text files with extension .c, for ex: helloTutOn.c