What is C?-Introduction, History& Characteristics of C

 

What is C Language?-Introduction, History& Characteristics of C

Introduction

C is a portable,powerful and elegantly structured programming language. It combines the features of a high-level language with the elements of assembler and, therefore, is suitable for writing both system software and application packages. Itis. The most widely used general-purpose language today. In fact, C has been used to implement systems like operating systems, compilers,linkers, word processors and utility packages.

History of C

C was derived from earlier languages such as ALGOL. BCPL and B by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Laboratories, USA in 1972. ALGOL, developed in the early 1960s, introduced the computer science community to the concept of structured programming. BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language) was developed by Martin Richards in 1967 primarily for writing systems software.Earlier versions of the Unix operating system were implemented using B. Both BCPL and B were 'type-less' languages because they did not define and use any. Types of information. C, developed in 1972, borrowed many ideas from these languages and added the concept of data types and other powerful features. In the 1970s, C developed as a powerful language for developing operating systems and compilers. It became popular in the programming community when Brian Carningham and Dennis Ritchie published their book 'The C Programming Language' in 1978. In 1983, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) adopted the C language to bring some standards to the language and a version was known. Since ANS/C was approved in 1989. It remains a standard even today.In the 1990s, some features of later languages such as C++ and Java were added to C, and in 1999, the C Standardization Committee announced a new version of C known as C99.

Characteristics of C

The growing popularity of C is apperently due to its many desirable qualities. Some important features are:

★It is a highly structured language. It uses high-level language features.

★It can handle bit-level operations.

★C is a machine independent language and hence highly portable.
★It supports a powerful set of different data types and operators.

★It supports dynamic memory management using pointer concept.
★It enables implementation of hierarchical and modular programming with functions.
★C can extend itself by continuously adding functions to its library.

FAQs

How does C programming work?

C programming language works by writing your code in an executable file. The C compiler will take that executable and completely convert it into a machine code that will be implemented by your computer in RunTeme.