Programming Fundamentals

The lecture presents the fundamentals of structured programming in ANSI C language and makes students familiar with syntax elements necessary to design console applications. The course include general structure of C programs, types and variables, arithmetic, conditional statements and loops, advanced types, usage of pointers. Standard libraries and header files allow to use libraries and undertake more complicated projects. Elementary knowledge on memory management and I/O operations helps to create efficient programs. Concluding part of material is dedicated to software architecture design and testing strategies.

Lecture contents

1. Introduction (2h): General information about programming
   problems. C among other programming languages.


2. Basic and formatted input/output (2h): The basic data types,
   declaring variables, function scanf() and printf, character strings,
   #define directive.


3. Arithmetic (2h): Operators, expressions, and statements.


4. Flow control: loops (2h): for, while, do while keywords,
   operators to construct expressions to control loops, arrays (a first
   look), functions returning values


5. Flow control: branching and jumps (2h): keywords if, else,
   switch, continue, break, case, default, goto, functions getchar() and
   putchar(), nesting conditional statements, character analysis functions
   library ctype.h.


6. Validation of character input/output (2h): getchar() and
   putchar() in details, buffers, terminating the keyboard input,
   redirection and files, input validation.


7. Functions (2h): Review, ANSI C prototyping, recursion, the
   operator, altering variables in the calling function, a first approach
   to pointers.


8. Arrays and pointers (2h): Arrays and multidimensional arrays,
   pointers, pointer operations, protecting array contents, VLAs, compound
   literals.


9. Character strings (2h): Strings representation and string
   functions, creating and using strings, using command line arguments


10. Storage classes, linkage, and memory management (2h): Keywords
    auto, extern, static, register, const, volatile, restricted; functions
    rand(), srand(), time(), malloc(), calloc(), free(). Designing more
    complex programs.


11. File input/output (2h): Text modes and binary modes and formats.
    Buffered and non-buffered input/output. Sequential and random access.


12. Structures and various data forms (2h): Keywords struct, union,
    typedef; accessing the members of structures, nesting structures.


13. Operations on bits (2h): bitwise operators and bit fields.


14. The C preprocesors, macros (2h): Preprocessor directives,
    function-like macros, conditional compilation, inline functions, C
    libraries, ADTs.


15. SLC, Testing and summary (2h): Comments on Software Life Cycle,
    Testing strategies for software development, summary.

1. Basic communication with the console.


2. Variables, linear statements.


3. Conditional statements and loops.


4. Arrays and records.


5. Pointers.

1. M. A. Vine, C Programming for the Absolute Beginner, Course
   Technology CENGAGE learning.


2. B. Kernighan, D. Ritchie, The C Programming Language. Also known
   as K&R ? The original book on C, 2nd, Prentice Hall 1988, ISBN
   0-13-110362-8.


3. ANSI C. ISO/IEC 9899.

General knowledge specially from lectures is checked during final test
and gives maximum 40 points. During the tutorial exercises it is
possible to score up to 30 points.

Laboratory gives maximum 30 points.

The final result is based on the following pattern:

5.0: 91-100 points

4.5: 81-90 points

4.0: 71-80 points

3.5: 61-70 points

3.0: 51-60 points

2.0: 0 -50 points