Features of C language

This article is about getting to know the features of C language and why it is important. C is an efficient and general-purpose language that has been used in databases, operating systems, applications, etc. C was designed by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs from 1969 to 1973. The initial version of this language somehow evolved and replaced the B language that was previously invented in Bell Labs.

Ritchie and his colleague Brian Kernig published a book in 1987 that served as an unofficial reference standard for C programmers for many years, but ANSI published the C standard in 1989; For this reason, the initial version of this language is usually called ANSI C. The C language was created as a tool for Unix system design, so the main goal was to be as efficient and powerful as possible.

Amazing features of C language

Indeed, C was originally designed for system design, but because it had many features, it quickly found its place in designing applications or programming hardware and chips. The acceptability and use of C language can be arranged in the following categories:

Hardware and memory access

The most important advantage of C language is the ability to access memory through pointers. The pointer provides a lot of possibilities to the programmer, using which some required operations can be done, and the program can be done with minimal software overhead. A pointer is an amazing feature useful in manipulating strings, accessing arrays, calling functions, sending arguments to functions, accessing members of a structure, allocating memory, and many other things.

The modular programming style

A proper and correct program is designed in such a way that it can be debugged, upgraded, reused, and ported to other chips as easily as possible. Using the modular programming style is a suitable way to design these systems, which brings many advantages. To learn more, read the modular programming article.

Standard C

Most of the companies producing C compilers try to follow the ANSI C standard in the compiler design, so the features of the C language are similar to each other in most compilers. Therefore, by spending time and money, the program code can be transferred to other compilers. This feature becomes important when the designer intends to transfer previous projects to another piece.

High efficiency

The compiler efficiency includes two issues: production code volume and execution speed. C is a high-performance language. C programs are compact and run quickly. If the compiler and programming language are not efficient enough, the designer must use a part with more memory and higher speed, and this means an increase in cost. Companies that mass produce the products should use compilers with higher efficiency so that the price of the final product is suitable and competitive.

Existence of RTOS

RTOS stands for Real-Time Operating System. Most microcontroller systems have time limits and must operate in real-time. In real-time applications, it is necessary to use RTOS, which is almost the existing RTOS in C language.

Structure and Union support

The C language supports structured data types such as Structure. The structure is a very useful feature that increases the coherence of the program. In addition to Structure, there is a structure called Union in C language, one of its applications is to analyze and combine data without software overhead.

Why learn C?

• Despite being old, C is a very popular language and has a very extended community.
• Compared to other languages like Python and Java, C is very fast to run.
• C is used in a lot of fields.
• The syntax of C is very similar to languages such as Python, Java, C++, C#, etc. So if you know C, you can learn those languages conveniently.

Final word

Well, the first training session is over, and you have gained some familiarity with the C language. For now, we reviewed the basics of learning C language. Now you can go to the next lesson.