What is C Language.......History of C...

 ......What is C......

Let's learn about the C language in this tutorial:

What is C Programming Langauge?

C is a general-purpose programming language that is extremely popular, simple, and flexible to use. It is a structured programming language that is machine-independent and extensively used to write various applications, Operating Systems like Windows, and many other complex programs like Oracle database, Git, Python interpreter, and more.

It is said that 'C' is a god's programming language. One can say, C is a base for the programming. If you know 'C,' you can easily grasp the knowledge of the other programming languages that use the concept of 'C'.

Uses Of C:

1. 'C' language is widely used in embedded systems.
2. It is used for developing system applications.
3. It is widely used for developing desktop applications.
4. Most of the applications by Adobe are developed using the 'C' programming language.
5. It is used for developing browsers and their extensions. Google's Chromium is built using 'C' programming language.
6. It is used to develop databases. MySQL is the most popular database software which is built using 'C'.
7. It is used in developing an operating system. Operating systems such as Apple's OS X, Microsoft's Windows, and Symbian are developed using 'C' language. It is used for developing desktop as well as mobile phone's operating system.
8. It is used for compiler production.
9. It is widely used in IoT applications.

History of C language

The base or father of programming languages is 'ALGOL.' It was first introduced in 1960. 'ALGOL' was used on a large basis in European countries. 'ALGOL' introduced the concept of structured programming to the developer community. In 1967, a new computer programming language was announced called 'BCPL' which stands for Basic Combined Programming Language. BCPL was designed and developed by Martin Richards, especially for writing system software. This was the era of programming languages. Just after three years, in 1970 a new programming language called 'B' was introduced by Ken Thompson that contained multiple features of 'BCPL.' This programming language was created using UNIX operating system at AT&T and Bell Laboratories. Both the 'BCPL' and 'B' were system programming languages.

In 1972, a great computer scientist Dennis Ritchie created a new programming language called 'C' at the Bell Laboratories. It was created from 'ALGOL', 'BCPL' and 'B' programming languages. 'C' programming language contains all the features of these languages and many more additional concepts that make it unique from other languages.

'C' is a powerful programming language which is strongly associated with the UNIX operating system. Even most of the UNIX operating system is coded in 'C'. Initially 'C' programming was limited to the UNIX operating system, but as it started spreading around the world, it became commercial, and many compilers were released for cross-platform systems. Today 'C' runs under a variety of operating systems and hardware platforms. As it started evolving many different versions of the language were released. At times it became difficult for the developers to keep up with the latest version as the systems were running under the older versions. To assure that 'C' language will remain standard, American National Standards Institute (ANSI) defined a commercial standard for 'C' language in 1989. Later, it was approved by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in 1990. 'C' programming language is also called as 'ANSI C'.

Dennis Ritchie (right), the inventor of the C programming language, with Ken Thompson

The origin of C is closely tied to the development of the Unix operating system, originally implemented in assembly language on a PDF-7 by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, incorporating several ideas from colleagues. Eventually, they decided to port the operating system to a PDF-11. The original PDP-11 version of Unix was also developed in assembly language.

Thompson desired a programming language to make utilities for the new platform. At first, he tried to make a Fortran compiler but soon gave up the idea. Instead, he created a cut-down version of the recently developed BCPL system programming language. The official description of BCPL was not available at the time, and Thompson modified the syntax to be less wordy, producing a similar but somewhat simpler B. However, few utilities were ultimately written in B because it was too slow, and B could not take advantage of PDP-11 features such as Byte addressability.

In 1972, Ritchie started to improve B, which resulted in creating a new language C. The C compiler and some utilities made with it were included in version 2 Uni.

At Version 4 Uni, released in November 1973, the Unic Kamel was extensively re-implemented in C. By this time, the C language had acquired some powerful features such as types.

Preprocessor was introduced around 1973 at the urging of Alan Snyder and also in recognition of the usefulness of the file-inclusion mechanisms available in BCPL and PL/I. Its original version provided only included files and simple string replacements: #include and #define of parameterless macros. Soon after that, it was extended, mostly by Mike Lesk and then by John Reiser, to incorporate macros with arguments and conditional compilation.

Unix was one of the first operating system kernels implemented in a language other than assembly. Earlier instances include the Multics system (which was written in PL/I) and master control program (MCP) for the Burroughs B5000 (which was written in ALGOL) in 1961. In around 1977, Ritchie and Stephan C. Johnson made further changes to the language to facilitate portability of the Unix operating system. Johnson's Portable C Compiler served as the basis for several implementations of C on new platforms.

List of KeyWords...

• auto
• break
• case
• char
• const
• continue
• default
• do
• double
• else
• enum
• etern
• float
• for
• goto
• if
• int
• long
• register
• return
• short
• signed
• sizeof
• static
• struct
• switch
• typedef
• union
• unsigned
• void
• volatile
• while

C Input and Output Commands...

Input commands Are the following: 

• scanf()
• gets()
• getch()
• getche()

Output commands Are the following:

• printf()
• puts()

"Hello World" example:

#include<stdio.h>

main()

{

      printf("Hello World, I'm Fraz ");

}

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