In this live stream, we continue our journey into C programming using Beej’s Guide to C as our main study material.
We take a closer look at how a C program actually works, starting with the classic Hello World program and gradually digging deeper into the language and the compilation process.
We cover:
- The anatomy of a C program
#includeand the C preprocessor- Header files and
stdio.h - The
main()function - Function calls and function definitions
- Comments and escape sequences
printf()and format specifiers- Compiling C programs from the command line
- GCC and Clang
- C standards: C89, C99, C11, C17 and C23
- Using
-stdand-pedanticto control the C standard - Variables and variable names
- Memory, addresses and the basic idea behind pointers
- Basic C data types:
int,float,charand strings - Variable declaration and initialization
- Indeterminate values
- Boolean values and true/false in C
- Arithmetic and assignment operators
- Comparison operators
- The ternary (
?:) operator - Pre-increment and post-increment (
++) - Pre-decrement and post-decrement (
--) - The comma operator
- How expressions work in C
We also experiment with the code as we go, rather than simply reading the examples — including seeing what happens when we change compiler standards and when seemingly small syntax differences actually matter.
We stop just before flow control, which will be the subject of the next lesson.