C Programming Code Examples

The getopt() function is a builtin function in C and is used to parse command line arguments. The getopt() function is a command-line parser that shall follow Utility Syntax Guidelines 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 in the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines. The parameters argc and argv are the argument count and argument array as passed to main() (see exec() ). The argument optstring is a string of recognized option characters; if a character is followed by a colon, the option takes an argument. All option characters allowed by Utility Syntax Guideline 3 are allowed in optstring. The implementation may accept other characters as an extension. The argument count that was passed to main(). The argument array that was passed to main(). A string of recognized option letters; if a letter is followed by a colon, the option takes an argument. Valid option characters for optstring consist of a single alphanumeric character (i.e. a letter or digit). The variable optind is the index of the next element of the argv[] vector to be processed. It shall be initialized to 1 by the system, and getopt() shall update it when it finishes with each element of argv[]. When an element of argv[] contains multiple option characters, it is unspecified how getopt() determines which options have already been processed. The getopt() function shall return the next option character (if one is found) from argv that matches a character in optstring, if there is one that matches. If the option takes an argument, getopt() shall set the variable optarg to point to the option-argument as follows: 1- If the option was the last character in the string pointed to by an element of argv, then optarg shall contain the next element of argv, and optind shall be incremented by 2. If the resulting value of optind is greater than argc, this indicates a missing option-argument, and getopt() shall return an error indication. 2- Otherwise, optarg shall point to the string following the option character in that element of argv, and optind shall be incremented by 1. If, when getopt() is called: getopt() shall return -1 without changing optind. If: getopt() shall return -1 after incrementing optind. If getopt() encounters an option character that is not contained in optstring, it shall return the question-mark ( '?' ) character. If it detects a missing option-argument, it shall return the colon character ( ':' ) if the first character of optstring was a colon, or a question-mark character ( '?' ) otherwise. In either case, getopt() shall set the variable optopt to the option character that caused the error. If the application has not set the variable opterr to 0 and the first character of optstring is not a colon, getopt() shall also print a diagnostic message to stderr in the format specified for the getopts utility. The getopt() function need not be reentrant. A function that is not required to be reentrant is not required to be thread-safe. The getopt() function shall return the next option character specified on the command line. A colon ( ':' ) shall be returned if getopt() detects a missing argument and the first character of optstring was a colon ( ':' ). A question mark ( '?' ) shall be returned if getopt() encounters an option character not in optstring or detects a missing argument and the first character of optstring was not a colon ( ':' ). Otherwise, getopt() shall return -1 when all command line options are parsed.

Get string length. Returns the length of the C string str. The length of a C string is determined by the terminating null-character: A C string is as long as the number of characters between the beginning of the string and the terminating null character (without including the terminating null character itself). C string Function returns the length of string. This should not be confused with the size of the array that holds the string. strlen() function is defined in string.h header file. It doesn't count null character '\0'.

Pointers in C are easy and fun to learn. Some C programming tasks are performed more easily with pointers, and other tasks, such as dynamic memory allocation, cannot be performed without using pointers. So it becomes necessary to learn pointers to become a perfect C programmer. Let's start learning them in simple and easy steps. As you know, every variable is a memory location and every memory location has its address defined which can be accessed using ampersand (&) operator, which denotes an address in memory. Consider the following example, which prints the address of the variables defined: A pointer is a variable whose value is the address of another variable, i.e., direct address of the memory location. Like any variable or constant, you must declare a pointer before using it to store any variable address. The general form of a pointer variable declaration is: Here, type is the pointer's base type; it must be a valid C data type and var-name is the name of the pointer variable. The asterisk * used to declare a pointer is the same asterisk used for multiplication. However, in this statement the asterisk is being used to designate a variable as a pointer. Take a look at some of the valid pointer declaration: The actual data type of the value of all pointers, whether integer, float, character, or otherwise, is the same, a long hexadecimal number that represents a memory address. The only difference between pointers of different data types is the data type of the variable or constant that the pointer points to. There are a few important operations, which we will do with the help of pointers very frequently. (a) We define a pointer variable, (b) assign the address of a variable to a pointer and (c) finally access the value at the address available in the pointer variable. This is done by using unary operator * that returns the value of the variable located at the address specified by its operand. NULL Pointers: It is always a good practice to assign a NULL value to a pointer variable in case you do not have an exact address to be assigned. This is done at the time of variable declaration. A pointer that is assigned NULL is called a null pointer. The NULL pointer is a constant with a value of zero defined in several standard libraries. In most of the operating systems, programs are not permitted to access memory at address 0 because that memory is reserved by the operating system. However, the memory address 0 has special significance; it signals that the pointer is not intended to point to an accessible memory location. But by convention, if a pointer contains the null (zero) value, it is assumed to point to nothing. To check for a null pointer, you can use an 'if' statement as follows: Pointer arithmetic: There are four arithmetic operators that can be used in pointers: ++, --, +, - Array of pointers: You can define arrays to hold a number of pointers. Pointer to pointer: C allows you to have pointer on a pointer and so on. Passing pointers to functions in C: Passing an argument by reference or by address enable the passed argument to be changed in the calling function by the called function. Return pointer from functions in C: C allows a function to return a pointer to the local variable, static variable, and dynamically allocated memory as well. 1) Pointer reduces the code and improves the performance, it is used to retrieving strings, trees, etc. and used with arrays, structures, and functions. 2) We can return multiple values from a function using the pointer. 3) It makes you able to access any memory location in the computer's memory. There are many applications of pointers in c language. 1) Dynamic memory allocation: In c language, we can dynamically allocate memory using malloc() and calloc() functions where the pointer is used. 2) Arrays, Functions, and Structures: Pointers in c language are widely used in arrays, functions, and structures. It reduces the code and improves the performance.

Reallocate memory block. Changes the size of the memory block pointed to by ptr. The function may move the memory block to a new location (whose address is returned by the function). The content of the memory block is preserved up to the lesser of the new and old sizes, even if the block is moved to a new location. If the new size is larger, the value of the newly allocated portion is indeterminate. In case that ptr is a null pointer, the function behaves like malloc, assigning a new block of size bytes and returning a pointer to its beginning. realloc() is a function of C library for adding more memory size to already allocated memory blocks. The purpose of realloc in C is to expand current memory blocks while leaving the original content as it is. realloc() function helps to reduce the size of previously allocated memory by malloc or calloc functions. realloc stands for reallocation of memory. If size is zero, the return value depends on the particular library implementation: it may either be a null pointer or some other location that shall not be dereferenced. Pointer to a memory block previously allocated with malloc, calloc or realloc. Alternatively, this can be a null pointer, in which case a new block is allocated (as if malloc was called). New size for the memory block, in bytes. size_t is an unsigned integral type. If it is 0 and ptr points to an existing block of memory, the memory block pointed by ptr is deallocated and a NULL pointer is returned. Function returns a pointer to the reallocated memory block, which may be either the same as ptr or a new location. The type of this pointer is void*, which can be cast to the desired type of data pointer in order to be dereferenceable. Only the storage referenced by ptr and by the returned pointer are modified. No other storage locations are accessed by the call. If the function releases or reuses a unit of storage that is reused or released by another allocation or deallocation function, the functions are synchronized in such a way that the deallocation happens entirely before the next allocation.

Switch statement in C tests the value of a variable and compares it with multiple cases. Once the case match is found, a block of statements associated with that particular case is executed. Each case in a block of a switch has a different name/number which is referred to as an identifier. The value provided by the user is compared with all the cases inside the switch block until the match is found. If a case match is NOT found, then the default statement is executed, and the control goes out of the switch block. • The expression used in a switch statement must have an integral or enumerated type, or be of a class type in which the class has a single conversion function to an integral or enumerated type. • You can have any number of case statements within a switch. Each case is followed by the value to be compared to and a colon. • The constant-expression for a case must be the same data type as the variable in the switch, and it must be a constant or a literal. • When the variable being switched on is equal to a case, the statements following that case will execute until a break statement is reached. • When a break statement is reached, the switch terminates, and the flow of control jumps to the next line following the switch statement. • Not every case needs to contain a break. If no break appears, the flow of control will fall through to subsequent cases until a break is reached. • A switch statement can have an optional default case, which must appear at the end of the switch. The default case can be used for performing a task when none of the cases is true. No break is needed in the default case.

The free() function in C library allows you to release or deallocate the memory blocks which are previously allocated by calloc(), malloc() or realloc() functions. It frees up the memory blocks and returns the memory to heap. It helps freeing the memory in your program which will be available for later use. In C, the memory for variables is automatically deallocated at compile time. For dynamic memory allocation in C, you have to deallocate the memory explicitly. If not done, you may encounter out of memory error. This is the pointer to a memory block previously allocated with malloc, calloc or realloc to be deallocated. If a null pointer is passed as argument, no action occurs. This function does not return any value.

Get string from stream. Reads characters from stream and stores them as a C string into str until (num-1) characters have been read or either a newline or the end-of-file is reached, whichever happens first. A newline character makes fgets stop reading, but it is considered a valid character by the function and included in the string copied to str. A terminating null character is automatically appended after the characters copied to str. Notice that fgets is quite different from gets: not only fgets accepts a stream argument, but also allows to specify the maximum size of str and includes in the string any ending newline character. Pointer to an array of chars where the string read is copied. Maximum number of characters to be copied into str (including the terminating null-character). Pointer to a FILE object that identifies an input stream. stdin can be used as argument to read from the standard input. On success, the function returns str. If the end-of-file is encountered while attempting to read a character, the eof indicator is set (feof). If this happens before any characters could be read, the pointer returned is a null pointer (and the contents of str remain unchanged). If a read error occurs, the error indicator (ferror) is set and a null pointer is also returned (but the contents pointed by str may have changed).

Close file. Closes the file associated with the stream and disassociates it. All internal buffers associated with the stream are disassociated from it and flushed: the content of any unwritten output buffer is written and the content of any unread input buffer is discarded. Even if the call fails, the stream passed as parameter will no longer be associated with the file nor its buffers. Pointer to a FILE object that specifies the stream to be closed. The fclose() function shall cause the stream pointed to by stream to be flushed and the associated file to be closed. Any unwritten buffered data for the stream shall be written to the file; any unread buffered data shall be discarded. Whether or not the call succeeds, the stream shall be disassociated from the file and any buffer set by the setbuf() or setvbuf() function shall be disassociated from the stream. If the associated buffer was automatically allocated, it shall be deallocated. After the call to fclose(), any use of stream results in undefined behavior. If the stream is successfully closed, a zero value is returned. On failure, EOF is returned.

Get string from stdin. Reads characters from the standard input (stdin) and stores them as a C string into str until a newline character or the end-of-file is reached. The newline character, if found, is not copied into str. A terminating null character is automatically appended after the characters copied to str. Notice that gets is quite different from fgets: not only gets uses stdin as source, but it does not include the ending newline character in the resulting string and does not allow to specify a maximum size for str (which can lead to buffer overflows). The gets() function enables the user to enter some characters followed by the enter key. All the characters entered by the user get stored in a character array. The null character is added to the array to make it a string. The gets() allows the user to enter the space-separated strings. It returns the string entered by the user. Pointer to a block of memory (array of char) where the string read is copied as a C string. On success, the function returns str. If the end-of-file is encountered while attempting to read a character, the eof indicator is set (feof). If this happens before any characters could be read, the pointer returned is a null pointer (and the contents of str remain unchanged). If a read error occurs, the error indicator (ferror) is set and a null pointer is also returned (but the contents pointed by str may have changed).

In C, the "main" function is treated the same as every function, it has a return type (and in some cases accepts inputs via parameters). The only difference is that the main function is "called" by the operating system when the user runs the program. Thus the main function is always the first code executed when a program starts. main() function is a user defined, body of the function is defined by the programmer or we can say main() is programmer/user implemented function, whose prototype is predefined in the compiler. Hence we can say that main() in c programming is user defined as well as predefined because it's prototype is predefined. main() is a system (compiler) declared function whose defined by the user, which is invoked automatically by the operating system when program is being executed. Its first function or entry point of the program from where program start executed, program's execution starts from the main. So main is an important function in c , c++ programming language. is a keyword in C language, void means nothing, whenever we use void as a function return type then that function nothing return. here main() function no return any value. In place of void we can also use int return type of main() function, at that time main() return integer type value. is a name of function which is predefined function in C library. • An operating system always calls the main() function when a programmers or users execute their programming code. • It is responsible for starting and ends of the program. • It is a universally accepted keyword in programming language and cannot change its meaning and name. • A main() function is a user-defined function in C that means we can pass parameters to the main() function according to the requirement of a program. • A main() function is used to invoke the programming code at the run time, not at the compile time of a program. • A main() function is followed by opening and closing parenthesis brackets.

The for loop is used in the case where we need to execute some part of the code until the given condition is satisfied. The for loop is also called as a per-tested loop. It is better to use for loop if the number of iteration is known in advance. The for-loop statement is a very specialized while loop, which increases the readability of a program. It is frequently used to traverse the data structures like the array and linked list. First initialization happens and the counter variable gets initialized. In the second step the condition is checked, where the counter variable is tested for the given condition, if the condition returns true then the C statements inside the body of for loop gets executed, if the condition returns false then the for loop gets terminated and the control comes out of the loop. After successful execution of statements inside the body of loop, the counter variable is incremented or decremented, depending on the operation (++ or --).

While loop is also known as a pre-tested loop. In general, a while loop allows a part of the code to be executed multiple times depending upon a given boolean condition. It can be viewed as a repeating if statement. The while loop is mostly used in the case where the number of iterations is not known in advance. The while loop evaluates the test expression inside the parentheses (). If test expression is true, statements inside the body of while loop are executed. Then, test expression is evaluated again. The process goes on until test expression is evaluated to false. If test expression is false, the loop terminates. • The while loop evaluates the testExpression inside the parentheses (). • If testExpression is true, statements inside the body of while loop are executed. Then, testExpression is evaluated again. • The process goes on until testExpression is evaluated to false. • If testExpression is false, the loop terminates (ends).

The continue statement in C programming works somewhat like the break statement. Instead of forcing termination, it forces the next iteration of the loop to take place, skipping any code in between. For the for loop, continue statement causes the conditional test and increment portions of the loop to execute. For the while and do...while loops, continue statement causes the program control to pass to the conditional tests. The continue statement in C language is used to bring the program control to the beginning of the loop. The continue statement skips some lines of code inside the loop and continues with the next iteration. It is mainly used for a condition so that we can skip some code for a particular condition.

Closes a file descriptor, fildes. This frees the file descriptor to be returned by future open() calls and other calls that create file descriptors. The fildes argument must represent a hierarchical file system (HFS) file. When the last open file descriptor for a file is closed, the file itself is closed. If the file's link count is 0 at that time, its space is freed and the file becomes inaccessible. When the last open file descriptor for a pipe or FIFO file is closed, any data remaining in the pipe or FIFO file is discarded. close() unlocks (removes) all outstanding record locks that a process has on the associated file. The descriptor of the socket to be closed. Behavior for sockets: close() call shuts down the socket associated with the socket descriptor socket, and frees resources allocated to the socket. If socket refers to an open TCP connection, the connection is closed. If a stream socket is closed when there is input data queued, the TCP connection is reset rather than being cleanly closed. All sockets should be closed before the end of your process. You should issue a shutdown() call before you issue a close() call for a socket. For AF_INET and AF_INET6 stream sockets (SOCK_STREAM) using SO_LINGER socket option, the socket does not immediately end if data is still present when a close is issued. The following structure is used to set or unset this option, and it can be found in sys/socket.h. If the l_onoff switch is nonzero, the system attempts to deliver any unsent messages. If a linger time is specified, the system waits for n seconds before flushing the data and terminating the socket. For AF_UNIX, when closing sockets that were bound, you should also use unlink() to delete the file created at bind() time. Special behavior for XPG4.2: If a STREAMS-based fildes is closed and the calling process was previously registered to receive a SIGPOLL signal for events associated with that STREAM, the calling process will be unregistered for events associated with the STREAM. The last close() for a STREAM causes the STREAM associated with fildes to be dismantled. If O_NONBLOCK is not set and there have been no signals posted for the STREAM, and if there is data on the module's write queue, close() waits for an unspecified time (for each module and driver) for any output to drain before dismantling the STREAM. The time delay can be changed using an I_SETCLTIME ioctl() request. If the O_NONBLOCK flag is set, or if there are any pending signals, close() does not wait for output to drain, and dismantles the STREAM immediately. Note: z/OS® UNIX services do not supply any STREAMS devices or pseudodevices. See open() - Open a file for more information. If fildes refers to the master side of a pseudoterminal, a SIGHUP signal is sent to the process group, if any, for which the slave side of the pseudoterminal is the controlling terminal. If fildes refers to the slave side of a pseudoterminal, a zero-length message will be sent to the master. If fildes refers to a socket, close() causes the socket to be destroyed. If the socket is connection-oriented and the SO_LINGER option is set for the socket and the socket has untransmitted data, then close() will block for up to the current linger interval until all data is transmitted. If successful, close() returns 0. If unsuccessful, close() returns -1 and sets errno to one of the following values: The call did not complete because the specified socket descriptor is currently being used by another thread in the same process. For example, in a multithreaded environment, close() fails and returns EAGAIN when the following sequence of events occurs (1) thread is blocked in a read() or select() call on a given file or socket descriptor and (2) another thread issues a simultaneous close() call for the same descriptor. fildes is not a valid open file descriptor, or the socket parameter is not a valid socket descriptor. The file cannot be closed because it is blocked. close() was interrupted by a signal. The file may or may not be closed. Added for XPG4.2: An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system. fildes does not exist. The minor number for the file is incorrect.

Writes the C string pointed by format to the standard output (stdout). If format includes format specifiers (subsequences beginning with %), the additional arguments following format are formatted and inserted in the resulting string replacing their respective specifiers. printf format string refers to a control parameter used by a class of functions in the input/output libraries of C programming language. The string is written in a simple template language: characters are usually copied literally into the function's output, but format specifiers, which start with a % character, indicate the location and method to translate a piece of data (such as a number) to characters. "printf" is the name of one of the main C output functions, and stands for "print formatted". printf format strings are complementary to scanf format strings, which provide formatted input (parsing). In both cases these provide simple functionality and fixed format compared to more sophisticated and flexible template engines or parsers, but are sufficient for many purposes. C string that contains the text to be written to stdout. It can optionally contain embedded format specifiers that are replaced by the values specified in subsequent additional arguments and formatted as requested. A format specifier follows this prototype: [see compatibility note below] %[flags][width][.precision][length]specifier Where the specifier character at the end is the most significant component, since it defines the type and the interpretation of its corresponding argument: a conversion format specifier. Signed decimal integer Unsigned decimal integer Unsigned octal Unsigned hexadecimal integer Unsigned hexadecimal integer (uppercase) Decimal floating point, lowercase Decimal floating point, uppercase Scientific notation (mantissa/exponent), lowercase Scientific notation (mantissa/exponent), uppercase Use the shortest representation: %e or %f Use the shortest representation: %E or %F Hexadecimal floating point, lowercase Hexadecimal floating point, uppercase Character String of characters Pointer address Nothing printed. The corresponding argument must be a pointer to a signed int. The number of characters written so far is stored in the pointed location. A % followed by another % character will write a single % to the stream. The format specifier can also contain sub-specifiers: flags, width, .precision and modifiers (in that order), which are optional and follow these specifications: one or more flags that modifies the conversion behavior (optional) Left-justify within the given field width; Right justification is the default (see width sub-specifier). Forces to preceed the result with a plus or minus sign (+ or -) even for positive numbers. By default, only negative numbers are preceded with a - sign. If no sign is going to be written, a blank space is inserted before the value. Used with o, x or X specifiers the value is preceeded with 0, 0x or 0X respectively for values different than zero. Used with a, A, e, E, f, F, g or G it forces the written output to contain a decimal point even if no more digits follow. By default, if no digits follow, no decimal point is written. Left-pads the number with zeroes (0) instead of spaces when padding is specified (see width sub-specifier). an optional * or integer value used to specify minimum width field. Minimum number of characters to be printed. If the value to be printed is shorter than this number, the result is padded with blank spaces. The value is not truncated even if the result is larger. The width is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted. an optional field consisting of a . followed by * or integer or nothing to specify the precision. For integer specifiers (d, i, o, u, x, X): precision specifies the minimum number of digits to be written. If the value to be written is shorter than this number, the result is padded with leading zeros. The value is not truncated even if the result is longer. A precision of 0 means that no character is written for the value 0. For a, A, e, E, f and F specifiers: this is the number of digits to be printed after the decimal point (by default, this is 6). For g and G specifiers: This is the maximum number of significant digits to be printed. For s: this is the maximum number of characters to be printed. By default all characters are printed until the ending null character is encountered. If the period is specified without an explicit value for precision, 0 is assumed. The precision is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted. an optional length modifier that specifies the size of the argument. Depending on the format string, the function may expect a sequence of additional arguments, each containing a value to be used to replace a format specifier in the format string (or a pointer to a storage location, for n). There should be at least as many of these arguments as the number of values specified in the format specifiers. Additional arguments are ignored by the function. If a writing error occurs, the error indicator (ferror) is set and a negative number is returned. If a multibyte character encoding error occurs while writing wide characters, errno is set to EILSEQ and a negative number is returned.

Finds the process ID (PID) of the calling process. When any process is created, it has a unique id which is called its process id. When some process is formed and is running, a unique id is assigned to it. This is the process id. This function helps in returning the id of the process that is currently called. getpid() returns the process ID (PID) of the calling process. This is often used by routines that generate unique temporary filenames. getpid() returns the process ID of the current process. It never throws any error therefore is always successful. Use the -l c option to qcc to link against this library. This library is usually included automatically.

The time() function is defined in time.h header file. This function returns the time since 00:00:00 UTC, January 1, 1970 (Unix timestamp) in seconds. If second is not a null pointer, the returned value is also stored in the object pointed to by second. This function accepts single parameter second. This parameter is used to set the time_t object which store the time. This function returns current calender time as a object of type time_t. It is used to get current system time as structure. time() function is a useful utility function that we can use to measure the elapsed time of our program.

Initialize random number generator. The pseudo-random number generator is initialized using the argument passed as seed. For every different seed value used in a call to srand, the pseudo-random number generator can be expected to generate a different succession of results in the subsequent calls to rand. Two different initializations with the same seed will generate the same succession of results in subsequent calls to rand. If seed is set to 1, the generator is reinitialized to its initial value and produces the same values as before any call to rand or srand. In order to generate random-like numbers, srand is usually initialized to some distinctive runtime value, like the value returned by function time (declared in header <ctime>). This is distinctive enough for most trivial randomization needs. An integer value to be used as seed by the pseudo-random number generator algorithm. This function does not return any value. The function accesses and modifies internal state objects, which may cause data races with concurrent calls to rand or srand. Some libraries provide an alternative function of rand that explicitly avoids this kind of data race: rand_r (non-portable). C++ library implementations are allowed to guarantee no data races for calling this function.

Duplicate a specific number of bytes from a string. The strdup() function shall return a pointer to a new string, which is a duplicate of the string pointed to by str. The returned pointer can be passed to free(). A null pointer is returned if the new string cannot be created. The function strdup() is used to duplicate a string. It returns a pointer to null-terminated byte string. strdup reserves storage space for a copy of string by calling malloc. The string argument to this function is expected to contain a null character (\0) marking the end of the string. The string that you want to copy. The strdup() function shall return a pointer to a new string on success. Otherwise, it shall return a null pointer and set errno to indicate the error. Remember to free the storage reserved with the call to strdup. Strdup returns a pointer to the storage space containing the copied string. If it cannot reserve storage strdup returns NULL. strdup() function is non standard function which may not available in standard library in C.

#include is a way of including a standard or user-defined file in the program and is mostly written at the beginning of any C/C++ program. This directive is read by the preprocessor and orders it to insert the content of a user-defined or system header file into the following program. These files are mainly imported from an outside source into the current program. The process of importing such files that might be system-defined or user-defined is known as File Inclusion. This type of preprocessor directive tells the compiler to include a file in the source code program. Here are the two types of file that can be included using #include: • Header File or Standard files: This is a file which contains C/C++ function declarations and macro definitions to be shared between several source files. Functions like the printf(), scanf(), cout, cin and various other input-output or other standard functions are contained within different header files. So to utilise those functions, the users need to import a few header files which define the required functions. • User-defined files: These files resembles the header files, except for the fact that they are written and defined by the user itself. This saves the user from writing a particular function multiple times. Once a user-defined file is written, it can be imported anywhere in the program using the #include preprocessor. Including using " ": When using the double quotes(" "), the preprocessor access the current directory in which the source "header_file" is located. This type is mainly used to access any header files of the user's program or user-defined files. Including using <>: While importing file using angular brackets(<>), the the preprocessor uses a predetermined directory path to access the file. It is mainly used to access system header files located in the standard system directories.

Convert string to integer. Parses the C-string str interpreting its content as an integral number, which is returned as a value of type int. The function first discards as many whitespace characters (as in isspace) as necessary until the first non-whitespace character is found. Then, starting from this character, takes an optional initial plus or minus sign followed by as many base-10 digits as possible, and interprets them as a numerical value. The string can contain additional characters after those that form the integral number, which are ignored and have no effect on the behavior of this function. If the first sequence of non-whitespace characters in str is not a valid integral number, or if no such sequence exists because either str is empty or it contains only whitespace characters, no conversion is performed and zero is returned. C-string beginning with the representation of an integral number. The atoi() function converts a string of characters representing a numeral into a number of int. Similarly, atol() returns a long integer, and in C99, the atoll() function converts a string into an integer of type long long. The conversion ignores any leading whitespace characters (spaces, tabs, newlines). A leading plus sign is permissible; a minus sign makes the return value negative. Any character that cannot be interpreted as part of an integer, such as a decimal point or exponent sign, has the effect of terminating the numeral input, so that atoi() converts only the partial string to the left of that character. If under these conditions the string still does not appear to represent a numeral, then atoi() returns 0. On success, the function returns the converted integral number as an int value. If the converted value would be out of the range of representable values by an int, it causes undefined behavior. See strtol for a more robust cross-platform alternative when this is a possibility. The array pointed by str is accessed.

The open() function shall establish the connection between a file and a file descriptor. It shall create an open file description that refers to a file and a file descriptor that refers to that open file description. The file descriptor is used by other I/O functions to refer to that file. The path argument points to a pathname naming the file. The open() function shall return a file descriptor for the named file that is the lowest file descriptor not currently open for that process. The open file description is new, and therefore the file descriptor shall not share it with any other process in the system. The FD_CLOEXEC file descriptor flag associated with the new file descriptor shall be cleared. path to file which you want to use How you like to use The file offset used to mark the current position within the file shall be set to the beginning of the file. The file status flags and file access modes of the open file description shall be set according to the value of oflag. Values for oflag are constructed by a bitwise-inclusive OR of flags from the following list, defined in <fcntl.h>. Applications shall specify exactly one of the first three values (file access modes) below in the value of oflag: Open for reading only. Open for writing only. Open for reading and writing. The result is undefined if this flag is applied to a FIFO. Any combination of the following may be used: If set, the file offset shall be set to the end of the file prior to each write. If the file exists, this flag has no effect except as noted under O_EXCL below. Otherwise, the file shall be created; the user ID of the file shall be set to the effective user ID of the process; the group ID of the file shall be set to the group ID of the file's parent directory or to the effective group ID of the process; and the access permission bits (see <sys/stat.h>) of the file mode shall be set to the value of the third argument taken as type mode_t modified as follows: a bitwise AND is performed on the file-mode bits and the corresponding bits in the complement of the process' file mode creation mask. Thus, all bits in the file mode whose corresponding bit in the file mode creation mask is set are cleared. When bits other than the file permission bits are set, the effect is unspecified. The third argument does not affect whether the file is open for reading, writing, or for both. Implementations shall provide a way to initialize the file's group ID to the group ID of the parent directory. Implementations may, but need not, provide an implementation-defined way to initialize the file's group ID to the effective group ID of the calling process. Write I/O operations on the file descriptor shall complete as defined by synchronized I/O data integrity completion. If O_CREAT and O_EXCL are set, open() shall fail if the file exists. The check for the existence of the file and the creation of the file if it does not exist shall be atomic with respect to other threads executing open() naming the same filename in the same directory with O_EXCL and O_CREAT set. If O_EXCL and O_CREAT are set, and path names a symbolic link, open() shall fail and set errno to [EEXIST], regardless of the contents of the symbolic link. If O_EXCL is set and O_CREAT is not set, the result is undefined. If set and path identifies a terminal device, open() shall not cause the terminal device to become the controlling terminal for the process. When opening a FIFO with O_RDONLY or O_WRONLY set: • If O_NONBLOCK is set, an open() for reading-only shall return without delay. An open() for writing-only shall return an error if no process currently has the file open for reading. • If O_NONBLOCK is clear, an open() for reading-only shall block the calling thread until a thread opens the file for writing. An open() for writing-only shall block the calling thread until a thread opens the file for reading. When opening a block special or character special file that supports non-blocking opens: • If O_NONBLOCK is set, the open() function shall return without blocking for the device to be ready or available. Subsequent behavior of the device is device-specific. • If O_NONBLOCK is clear, the open() function shall block the calling thread until the device is ready or available before returning. Otherwise, the behavior of O_NONBLOCK is unspecified. Read I/O operations on the file descriptor shall complete at the same level of integrity as specified by the O_DSYNC and O_SYNC flags. If both O_DSYNC and O_RSYNC are set in oflag, all I/O operations on the file descriptor shall complete as defined by synchronized I/O data integrity completion. If both O_SYNC and O_RSYNC are set in flags, all I/O operations on the file descriptor shall complete as defined by synchronized I/O file integrity completion. Write I/O operations on the file descriptor shall complete as defined by synchronized I/O file integrity completion. If the file exists and is a regular file, and the file is successfully opened O_RDWR or O_WRONLY, its length shall be truncated to 0, and the mode and owner shall be unchanged. It shall have no effect on FIFO special files or terminal device files. Its effect on other file types is implementation-defined. The result of using O_TRUNC with O_RDONLY is undefined. If O_CREAT is set and the file did not previously exist, upon successful completion, open() shall mark for update the st_atime, st_ctime, and st_mtime fields of the file and the st_ctime and st_mtime fields of the parent directory. If O_TRUNC is set and the file did previously exist, upon successful completion, open() shall mark for update the st_ctime and st_mtime fields of the file. If both the O_SYNC and O_DSYNC flags are set, the effect is as if only the O_SYNC flag was set. If path refers to a STREAMS file, oflag may be constructed from O_NONBLOCK OR'ed with either O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, or O_RDWR. Other flag values are not applicable to STREAMS devices and shall have no effect on them. The value O_NONBLOCK affects the operation of STREAMS drivers and certain functions applied to file descriptors associated with STREAMS files. For STREAMS drivers, the implementation of O_NONBLOCK is device-specific. If path names the master side of a pseudo-terminal device, then it is unspecified whether open() locks the slave side so that it cannot be opened. Conforming applications shall call unlockpt() before opening the slave side. The largest value that can be represented correctly in an object of type off_t shall be established as the offset maximum in the open file description. Upon successful completion, the function shall open the file and return a non-negative integer representing the lowest numbered unused file descriptor. Otherwise, -1 shall be returned and errno set to indicate the error. No files shall be created or modified if the function returns -1. The open() function shall fail if: Search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix, or the file exists and the permissions specified by oflag are denied, or the file does not exist and write permission is denied for the parent directory of the file to be created, or O_TRUNC is specified and write permission is denied. O_CREAT and O_EXCL are set, and the named file exists. A signal was caught during open(). The implementation does not support synchronized I/O for this file. The path argument names a STREAMS file and a hangup or error occurred during the open(). The named file is a directory and oflag includes O_WRONLY or O_RDWR. A loop exists in symbolic links encountered during resolution of the path argument. {OPEN_MAX} file descriptors are currently open in the calling process. The length of the path argument exceeds {PATH_MAX} or a pathname component is longer than {NAME_MAX}. The maximum allowable number of files is currently open in the system. O_CREAT is not set and the named file does not exist; or O_CREAT is set and either the path prefix does not exist or the path argument points to an empty string. The path argument names a STREAMS-based file and the system is unable to allocate a STREAM. The directory or file system that would contain the new file cannot be expanded, the file does not exist, and O_CREAT is specified. A component of the path prefix is not a directory. O_NONBLOCK is set, the named file is a FIFO, O_WRONLY is set, and no process has the file open for reading. The named file is a character special or block special file, and the device associated with this special file does not exist. The named file is a regular file and the size of the file cannot be represented correctly in an object of type off_t. The named file resides on a read-only file system and either O_WRONLY, O_RDWR, O_CREAT (if the file does not exist), or O_TRUNC is set in the oflag argument. The open() function may fail if: The path argument names the slave side of a pseudo-terminal device that is locked. The value of the oflag argument is not valid. More than {SYMLOOP_MAX} symbolic links were encountered during resolution of the path argument. As a result of encountering a symbolic link in resolution of the path argument, the length of the substituted pathname string exceeded {PATH_MAX}. The path argument names a STREAMS file and the system is unable to allocate resources. The file is a pure procedure (shared text) file that is being executed and oflag is O_WRONLY or O_RDWR.

An array is defined as the collection of similar type of data items stored at contiguous memory locations. Arrays are the derived data type in C programming language which can store the primitive type of data such as int, char, double, float, etc. It also has the capability to store the collection of derived data types, such as pointers, structure, etc. The array is the simplest data structure where each data element can be randomly accessed by using its index number. C array is beneficial if you have to store similar elements. For example, if we want to store the marks of a student in 6 subjects, then we don't need to define different variables for the marks in the different subject. Instead of that, we can define an array which can store the marks in each subject at the contiguous memory locations. By using the array, we can access the elements easily. Only a few lines of code are required to access the elements of the array. The array contains the following properties. • Each element of an array is of same data type and carries the same size, i.e., int = 4 bytes. • Elements of the array are stored at contiguous memory locations where the first element is stored at the smallest memory location. • Elements of the array can be randomly accessed since we can calculate the address of each element of the array with the given base address and the size of the data element. • 1) Code Optimization: Less code to the access the data. • 2) Ease of traversing: By using the for loop, we can retrieve the elements of an array easily. • 3) Ease of sorting: To sort the elements of the array, we need a few lines of code only. • 4) Random Access: We can access any element randomly using the array. • 1) Allows a fixed number of elements to be entered which is decided at the time of declaration. Unlike a linked list, an array in C is not dynamic. • 2) Insertion and deletion of elements can be costly since the elements are needed to be managed in accordance with the new memory allocation. To declare an array in C, a programmer specifies the type of the elements and the number of elements required by an array as follows This is called a single-dimensional array. The arraySize must be an integer constant greater than zero and type can be any valid C data type. For example, to declare a 10-element array called balance of type double, use this statement Here balance is a variable array which is sufficient to hold up to 10 double numbers. You can initialize an array in C either one by one or using a single statement as follows The number of values between braces { } cannot be larger than the number of elements that we declare for the array between square brackets [ ]. If you omit the size of the array, an array just big enough to hold the initialization is created. Therefore, if you write An element is accessed by indexing the array name. This is done by placing the index of the element within square brackets after the name of the array. The above statement will take the 10^th element from the array and assign the value to salary variable.

Open file. Opens the file whose name is specified in the parameter filename and associates it with a stream that can be identified in future operations by the FILE pointer returned. The operations that are allowed on the stream and how these are performed are defined by the mode parameter. The returned stream is fully buffered by default if it is known to not refer to an interactive device (see setbuf). The returned pointer can be disassociated from the file by calling fclose or freopen. All opened files are automatically closed on normal program termination. The running environment supports at least FOPEN_MAX files open simultaneously. C string containing the name of the file to be opened. Its value shall follow the file name specifications of the running environment and can include a path (if supported by the system). C string containing a file access mode. It can be: Open file for input operations. The file must exist. Create an empty file for output operations. If a file with the same name already exists, its contents are discarded and the file is treated as a new empty file. Open file for output at the end of a file. Output operations always write data at the end of the file, expanding it. Repositioning operations (fseek, fsetpos, rewind) are ignored. The file is created if it does not exist. Open a file for update (both for input and output). The file must exist. Create an empty file and open it for update (both for input and output). If a file with the same name already exists its contents are discarded and the file is treated as a new empty file. Open a file for update (both for input and output) with all output operations writing data at the end of the file. Repositioning operations (fseek, fsetpos, rewind) affects the next input operations, but output operations move the position back to the end of file. The file is created if it does not exist. With the mode specifiers above the file is open as a text file. In order to open a file as a binary file, a "b" character has to be included in the mode string. This additional "b" character can either be appended at the end of the string (thus making the following compound modes: "rb", "wb", "ab", "r+b", "w+b", "a+b") or be inserted between the letter and the "+" sign for the mixed modes ("rb+", "wb+", "ab+"). The new C standard (C2011, which is not part of C++) adds a new standard subspecifier ("x"), that can be appended to any "w" specifier (to form "wx", "wbx", "w+x" or "w+bx"/"wb+x"). This subspecifier forces the function to fail if the file exists, instead of overwriting it. If additional characters follow the sequence, the behavior depends on the library implementation: some implementations may ignore additional characters so that for example an additional "t" (sometimes used to explicitly state a text file) is accepted. On some library implementations, opening or creating a text file with update mode may treat the stream instead as a binary file. Text files are files containing sequences of lines of text. Depending on the environment where the application runs, some special character conversion may occur in input/output operations in text mode to adapt them to a system-specific text file format. Although on some environments no conversions occur and both text files and binary files are treated the same way, using the appropriate mode improves portability. For files open for update (those which include a "+" sign), on which both input and output operations are allowed, the stream shall be flushed (fflush) or repositioned (fseek, fsetpos, rewind) before a reading operation that follows a writing operation. The stream shall be repositioned (fseek, fsetpos, rewind) before a writing operation that follows a reading operation (whenever that operation did not reach the end-of-file). If the file is successfully opened, the function returns a pointer to a FILE object that can be used to identify the stream on future operations. Otherwise, a null pointer is returned. On most library implementations, the errno variable is also set to a system-specific error code on failure.

Write formatted data to stream. Writes the C string pointed by format to the stream. If format includes format specifiers (subsequences beginning with %), the additional arguments following format are formatted and inserted in the resulting string replacing their respective specifiers. After the format parameter, the function expects at least as many additional arguments as specified by format. Pointer to a FILE object that identifies an output stream. C string that contains the text to be written to the stream. It can optionally contain embedded format specifiers that are replaced by the values specified in subsequent additional arguments and formatted as requested. A format specifier follows this prototype: %[flags][width][.precision][length]specifier Where the specifier character at the end is the most significant component, since it defines the type and the interpretation of its corresponding argument: a conversion format specifier. Signed decimal integer Unsigned decimal integer Unsigned octal Unsigned hexadecimal integer Unsigned hexadecimal integer (uppercase) Decimal floating point, lowercase Decimal floating point, uppercase Scientific notation (mantissa/exponent), lowercase Scientific notation (mantissa/exponent), uppercase Use the shortest representation: %e or %f Use the shortest representation: %E or %F Hexadecimal floating point, lowercase Hexadecimal floating point, uppercase Character String of characters Pointer address Nothing printed. The corresponding argument must be a pointer to a signed int. The number of characters written so far is stored in the pointed location. A % followed by another % character will write a single % to the stream. The format specifier can also contain sub-specifiers: flags, width, .precision and modifiers (in that order), which are optional and follow these specifications: one or more flags that modifies the conversion behavior (optional) Left-justify within the given field width; Right justification is the default (see width sub-specifier). Forces to preceed the result with a plus or minus sign (+ or -) even for positive numbers. By default, only negative numbers are preceded with a - sign. If no sign is going to be written, a blank space is inserted before the value. Used with o, x or X specifiers the value is preceeded with 0, 0x or 0X respectively for values different than zero. Used with a, A, e, E, f, F, g or G it forces the written output to contain a decimal point even if no more digits follow. By default, if no digits follow, no decimal point is written. Left-pads the number with zeroes (0) instead of spaces when padding is specified (see width sub-specifier). an optional * or integer value used to specify minimum width field. Minimum number of characters to be printed. If the value to be printed is shorter than this number, the result is padded with blank spaces. The value is not truncated even if the result is larger. The width is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted. an optional field consisting of a . followed by * or integer or nothing to specify the precision. For integer specifiers (d, i, o, u, x, X): precision specifies the minimum number of digits to be written. If the value to be written is shorter than this number, the result is padded with leading zeros. The value is not truncated even if the result is longer. A precision of 0 means that no character is written for the value 0. For a, A, e, E, f and F specifiers: this is the number of digits to be printed after the decimal point (by default, this is 6). For g and G specifiers: This is the maximum number of significant digits to be printed. For s: this is the maximum number of characters to be printed. By default all characters are printed until the ending null character is encountered. If the period is specified without an explicit value for precision, 0 is assumed. The precision is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted. an optional length modifier that specifies the size of the argument. The argument is interpreted as a short int or unsigned short int (only applies to integer specifiers: i, d, o, u, x and X). The argument is interpreted as a long int or unsigned long int for integer specifiers (i, d, o, u, x and X), and as a wide character or wide character string for specifiers c and s. The argument is interpreted as a long double (only applies to floating point specifiers - e, E, f, g and G). Depending on the format string, the function may expect a sequence of additional arguments, each containing a value to be used to replace a format specifier in the format string (or a pointer to a storage location, for n). There should be at least as many of these arguments as the number of values specified in the format specifiers. Additional arguments are ignored by the function. On success, the total number of characters written is returned. If a writing error occurs, the error indicator (ferror) is set and a negative number is returned. If a multibyte character encoding error occurs while writing wide characters, errno is set to EILSEQ and a negative number is returned.

The exit() function is used to terminate a process or function calling immediately in the program. It means any open file or function belonging to the process is closed immediately as the exit() function occurred in the program. The exit() function is the standard library function of the C, which is defined in the stdlib.h header file. So, we can say it is the function that forcefully terminates the current program and transfers the control to the operating system to exit the program. The exit(0) function determines the program terminates without any error message, and then the exit(1) function determines the program forcefully terminates the execution process. Status code. If this is 0 or EXIT_SUCCESS, it indicates success. If it is EXIT_FAILURE, it indicates failure. The exit function does not return anything. • We must include the stdlib.h header file while using the exit () function. • It is used to terminate the normal execution of the program while encountered the exit () function. • The exit () function calls the registered atexit() function in the reverse order of their registration. • We can use the exit() function to flush or clean all open stream data like read or write with unwritten buffered data. • It closed all opened files linked with a parent or another function or file and can remove all files created by the tmpfile function. • The program's behaviour is undefined if the user calls the exit function more than one time or calls the exit and quick_exit function. • The exit function is categorized into two parts: exit(0) and exit(1).

Print error message. Interprets the value of errno as an error message, and prints it to stderr (the standard error output stream, usually the console), optionally preceding it with the custom message specified in str. errno is an integral variable whose value describes the error condition or diagnostic information produced by a call to a library function (any function of the C standard library may set a value for errno, even if not explicitly specified in this reference, and even if no error happened), see errno for more info. C string containing a custom message to be printed before the error message itself. If it is a null pointer, no preceding custom message is printed, but the error message is still printed. By convention, the name of the application itself is generally used as parameter. This function does not return any value. The error message produced by perror is platform-depend. If the parameter str is not a null pointer, str is printed followed by a colon (:) and a space. Then, whether str was a null pointer or not, the generated error description is printed followed by a newline character ('\n'). perror should be called right after the error was produced, otherwise it can be overwritten by calls to other functions.

The break is a keyword in C which is used to bring the program control out of the loop. The break statement is used inside loops or switch statement. The break statement breaks the loop one by one, i.e., in the case of nested loops, it breaks the inner loop first and then proceeds to outer loops. When a break statement is encountered inside a loop, the loop is immediately terminated and the program control resumes at the next statement following the loop. It can be used to terminate a case in the switch statement (covered in the next chapter). If you are using nested loops, the break statement will stop the execution of the innermost loop and start executing the next line of code after the block.

The sizeof() operator is commonly used in C. It determines the size of the expression or the data type specified in the number of char-sized storage units. The sizeof() operator contains a single operand which can be either an expression or a data typecast where the cast is data type enclosed within parenthesis. The data type cannot only be primitive data types such as integer or floating data types, but it can also be pointer data types and compound data types such as unions and structs. Where data type is the desired data type including classes, structures, unions and any other user defined data type. Mainly, programs know the storage size of the primitive data types. Though the storage size of the data type is constant, it varies when implemented in different platforms. For example, we dynamically allocate the array space by using sizeof() operator:

read() attempts to read up to count bytes from file descriptor fd into the buffer starting at buf. On files that support seeking, the read operation commences at the file offset, and the file offset is incremented by the number of bytes read. If the file offset is at or past the end of file, no bytes are read, and read() returns zero. The file or socket descriptor. The pointer to the buffer that receives the data. The length in bytes of the buffer pointed to by the buf parameter. If count is zero, read() may detect the errors described below. In the absence of any errors, or if read() does not check for errors, a read() with a count of 0 returns zero and has no other effects. According to POSIX.1, if count is greater than SSIZE_MAX, the result is implementation-defined; see NOTES for the upper limit on Linux. On success, the number of bytes read is returned (zero indicates end of file), and the file position is advanced by this number. It is not an error if this number is smaller than the number of bytes requested; this may happen for example because fewer bytes are actually available right now (maybe because we were close to end-of-file, or because we are reading from a pipe, or from a terminal), or because read() was interrupted by a signal. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error. In this case, it is left unspecified whether the file position (if any) changes.

The if...else statement executes two different codes depending upon whether the test expression is true or false. Sometimes, a choice has to be made from more than 2 possibilities. The if...else ladder allows you to check between multiple test expressions and execute different statements. In C/C++ if-else-if ladder helps user decide from among multiple options. The C/C++ if statements are executed from the top down. As soon as one of the conditions controlling the if is true, the statement associated with that if is executed, and the rest of the C else-if ladder is bypassed. If none of the conditions is true, then the final else statement will be executed. In the above syntax of if-else-if, if the Condition1 is TRUE then the Statement1 will be executed and control goes to next statement in the program following if-else-if ladder. If Condition1 is FALSE then Condition2 will be checked, if Condition2 is TRUE then Statement2 will be executed and control goes to next statement in the program following if-else-if ladder. Similarly, if Condition2 is FALSE then next condition will be checked and the process continues. If all the conditions in the if-else-if ladder are evaluated to FALSE, then Default_Statement will be executed.

An expression containing logical operator returns either 0 or 1 depending upon whether expression results true or false. Logical operators are commonly used in decision making in C programming. These operators are used to perform logical operations and used with conditional statements like C if-else statements. Called Logical AND operator. If both the operands are non-zero, then the condition becomes true. Called Logical OR Operator. If any of the two operands is non-zero, then the condition becomes true. Called Logical NOT Operator. It is used to reverse the logical state of its operand. If a condition is true, then Logical NOT operator will make it false.

Generate random number. Returns a pseudo-random integral number in the range between 0 and RAND_MAX. This number is generated by an algorithm that returns a sequence of apparently non-related numbers each time it is called. This algorithm uses a seed to generate the series, which should be initialized to some distinctive value using function srand. RAND_MAX is a constant defined in <cstdlib>. In the C programming language, the rand() function is a library function that generates the random number in the range [0, RAND_MAX]. When we use the rand() function in a program, we need to implement the stdlib.h header file because rand() function is defined in the stdlib header file. It does not contain any seed number. Therefore, when we execute the same program again and again, it returns the same values. The C library function int rand(void) returns a pseudo-random number in the range of 0 to RAND_MAX. RAND_MAX is a constant whose default value may vary between implementations but it is granted to be at least 32767. Notice though that this modulo operation does not generate uniformly distributed random numbers in the span (since in most cases this operation makes lower numbers slightly more likely). In C, the generation algorithm used by rand is guaranteed to only be advanced by calls to this function. In C++, this constraint is relaxed, and a library implementation is allowed to advance the generator on other circumstances (such as calls to elements of ).

Data races

The function accesses and modifies internal state objects, which may cause data races with concurrent calls to rand or srand. Some libraries provide an alternative function that explicitly avoids this kind of data race: rand_r (non-portable). C++ library implementations are allowed to guarantee no data races for calling this function.

In the C Programming Language, the #define directive allows the definition of macros within your source code. These macro definitions allow constant values to be declared for use throughout your code. Macro definitions are not variables and cannot be changed by your program code like variables. You generally use this syntax when creating constants that represent numbers, strings or expressions. is the name of a particular constant. It can either be defined in smaller case or upper case or both. Most of the developers prefer the constant names to be in the upper case to find the differences. defines the value of the constant. is the value that is assigned to that constant which is defined. The expression should always be enclosed within the brackets if it has any operators. In the C programming language, the preprocessor directive acts an important role within which the #define directive is present that is used to define the constant or the micro substitution. The #define directive can use any of the basic data types present in the C standard. The #define preprocessor directive lets a programmer or a developer define the macros within the source code. This macro definition will allow the constant value that should be declared for the usage. Macro definitions cannot be changed within the program's code as one does with other variables, as macros are not variables. The #define is usually used in syntax that created a constant that is used to represent numbers, strings, or other expressions. The #define directive should not be enclosed with the semicolon(;). It is a common mistake done, and one should always treat this directive as any other header file. Enclosing it with a semicolon will generate an error. The #define creates a macro, which is in association with an identifier or is parameterized identifier along with a token string. After the macro is defined, then the compiler can substitute the token string for each occurrence of the identifier within the source file.

Absolute value. The abs () function is a predefined function in the stdlib.h header file to return the absolute value of the given integers. So, if we want to return the absolute value of a given number, we need to implement the stdlib.h header file in the C program. The abs() function only returns the positive numbers. Integral value. Suppose we have an integer number -5, and we want to get the absolute number, we use the abs() function to return the positive number as 5. Furthermore, if we pass any positive number, it returns the same number. Function returns the absolute value of n. In C, only the int version exists. Concurrently calling this function is safe, causing no data races.

The bitwise operators are the operators used to perform the operations on the data at the bit-level. When we perform the bitwise operations, then it is also known as bit-level programming. It consists of two digits, either 0 or 1. It is mainly used in numerical computations to make the calculations faster. We have different types of bitwise operators in the C programming language. The following is the list of the bitwise operators: Bitwise AND operator is denoted by the single ampersand sign (&). Two integer operands are written on both sides of the (&) operator. If the corresponding bits of both the operands are 1, then the output of the bitwise AND operation is 1; otherwise, the output would be 0. Bitwise OR operator is represented by a single vertical sign (|). Two integer operands are written on both sides of the (|) symbol. If the bit value of any of the operand is 1, then the output would be 1, otherwise 0. Bitwise exclusive OR operator is denoted by (^) symbol. Two operands are written on both sides of the exclusive OR operator. If the corresponding bit of any of the operand is 1 then the output would be 1, otherwise 0. Bitwise complement operator is also known as one's complement operator (unary operator). It is represented by the symbol tilde (~). It takes only one operand or variable and performs complement operation on an operand. When we apply the complement operation on any bits, then 0 becomes 1 and 1 becomes 0. Two types of bitwise shift operators exist in C programming. The bitwise shift operators will shift the bits either on the left-side or right-side. Therefore, we can say that the bitwise shift operator is divided into two categories: Left-shift operator - It is an operator that shifts the number of bits to the left-side. Left shift operator shifts all bits towards left by a certain number of specified bits. The bit positions that have been vacated by the left shift operator are filled with 0. The symbol of the left shift operator is <<. Right-shift operator - It is an operator that shifts the number of bits to the right side. Right shift operator shifts all bits towards right by certain number of specified bits. It is denoted by >>. X Y X&Y X|Y X^Y 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1