Essentials of C Program
Let's delve deeper into our introductory program:
Main.c
12345678#include <stdio.h> // preprocessor directive int main() // the main function { printf("Hello, c<>definity!\n"); // print text return 0; // exit }
printf Function
The printf()
function displays output on the screen. For our example, it shows the message "Hello, c<>definity!"
. Text meant for display should be wrapped in double quotes, like this:
cprintf("some text");
Control Characters
Note
In C,
\n
is recognized as a single character, not two separate characters ("\"
and"n"
).
The character sequence \n
represents a newline. This means that any content following this sequence will appear on the next line.
Main.c
12345678#include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("Hel\nlo"); return 0; }
Throughout this course, we'll occasionally utilize the \t
character for tabulation, which equates to a tab, or 4 spaces.
Main.c
12345678#include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("Hel\tlo"); return 0; }
The Semicolon
The semicolon ;
signifies the end of a statement in C. Every statement in C should conclude with a ;
. Think of it like the period at the end of a written sentence.
The Return Statement
return
is the statement used to end a function and potentially return a value. In the context of the main
function, the standard in C requires the use of return 0
. While it has specific implications on UNIX systems, it generally indicates an "Exit status" or the successful termination of a program. We'll explore the return
statement in greater depth as the course progresses.
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