Language C

Topics:
1. Introduction and History
A) Invention and Publication
1. Year and Lab
B) Developer
2. Types, Operator and Expressions
A) Data Type and Sizes
int, float, double, char and long
B) Operators
Arithmetic, relational, Logical operators, bitwise operator, Assignment Operator
C) Expression
Conditional expressions, Precedence
3. Control Flow
A) Control Statements(IF and Else)
B) Loops(while, do-while, for)
C) Jump Statement(break, continue, exit )
4. Function and Program Structure
A) Basics of Function
B) Types of Variables
External, scope, header and register
C) Recursion
5. Pointers and Array
A) Pointers
1. Pointers and Address
2. Pointers and Array
3. Character Pointers
B) Array
1. Introduction
2. Types of Array
6. Structures
A) Basics of Structure
B) Array of Structure
C) Pointers of Structure
D) Structure of Functions
7. Input and Output
A) Standard Input and Output
B) Formatted Output
C) Formatted Input
D) Files Access

1.

Introduction and History

Q.1 In which year C Language published?

Answer: 1978
Q.2 C Language was developed for which OS?
Answer: UNIX
Q.3 In which Lab C Language is developed?
Answer: Bell Labs
Q.4 C Language was developed by?
Answer: Dennis Ritchie
Q.5 C Language was developed in which machine?
Answer: PDP-11 at B Language
Q.6 Why C language was developed?
Answer: Because at that time B language wasnt powerful to full-fill UNIX requirement.
Q.7 What is C Language?
Answer: The C programming language is a standardized programming language developed
in the early 1970s by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie for use on the UNIX operating
system. It has since spread to many other operating systems, and is one of the most widely
used programming languages. C is prized for its efficiency, and is the most popular
programming language for writing system software, though it is also used for writing
applications.

2.

Types operator and Expressions

Q.1 Name the Data type in C Language?

Answer: INT, FLOAT, CHAR, DOUBLE and LONG
Q.2 Name the type of operator in C language?
Answer: arithmetic, logical, relational, increment and decrement operator and bitwise
operator.
Q.3 Can a variable be constant and volatile?

Answer Yes. The const modifier means that this code cannot change the value of the
variable, but that does not mean that the value cannot be changed by means outside this
code. For instance, in the example in FAQ 8, the timer structure was accessed through a
volatile const pointer.
The function itself did not change the value of the timer, so it was declared const. However,
the value was changed by hardware on the computer, so it was declared volatile. If a
variable is both const and volatile, the two modifiers can appear in either order.

Q.4 what is type conversions?

Answer: when an operator has operands of different types, they are converted to a common
type according to a small number of rules.

Q.5 Name some bitwise operator?

Answer: &,|,<<,>>,^,~

Q.6 Name some assignment operator?

Answer: +=,*=,/=,%=,-=

Q.7 Name the operator use for conditional expressions?

Answer: ?:

Q.8 Precedence of operator in C?

Answer: higher to lower brackets,
Increment operator, arithmetic operator, relational operator, bitwise operator, logical
operator, conditional operator, assignment operator

Q.9 Name escape sequence in C?

Answer: \a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v, \\, \?, \, \ \ooo, \xhh

Q.10 Which bit wise operator is suitable for turning off a particular bit in a number ?
Answer: The bitwise AND operator, again. In the following code snippet, the bit number 24 is
reset to zero.
some_int = some_int & ~KBit24;

Q.11 Which bit wise operator is suitable for putting on a particular bit in a number ?
Answer: The bitwise OR operator. In the following code snippet, the bit number 24 is turned
ON:
some_int = some_int | KBit24;

Q.12 Difference between const char* p and char const* p

Answer: In const char* p, the character pointed by p is constant, so u cant change the
value of character pointed by p but u can make p refer to some other location.
in char const* p, the ptr p is constant not the character referenced by it, so u cant make p
to reference to any other location but u can change the value of the char pointed by p.

3 Control Flow Statements

Q.1 If and else statement are used basically for?

Answer: They are basically used to give direction to your program by checking expressions.
Q.2 What is the main purpose of switch statement?
Answer: It is the multi-way decisions tests.
Q.3 Name the way to do looping in C?
Answer: While,For,do While
Q.4 what is the purpose of the break statement?

Answer: It only exists from the innermost loop.

Q.5 What is the purpose of the continue?
Answer: it causes the next iteration of the enclosing for, while, or do-while.
Q.6 what is the purpose of the return ?
Answer: it is actually returns the value of the method or function.
Q.7 What is the purpose of exit statement?
Answer: It is actually used to end the program.
Q.8 For the successful run what should programs main method return?
Answer: 0
Functions

Q.1 Advantages macro over function?

Answer: Macro gets to see the Compilation environment, so it can expand __ __TIME__
__FILE__ #defines. It is expanded by the preprocessor.
For example, you cant do this without macros
#define PRINT(EXPR) printf( #EXPR =%d\n, EXPR)
PRINT( 5+6*7 ) // expands into printf(5+6*7=%d, 5+6*7 );
You can define your mini language with macros:
#define strequal(A,B) (!strcmp(A,B))
Macros are a necessary evils of life. The purists dont like them, but without it no real work
gets done.

Q.2 Does there exist any other function which can be used to convert an integer or a float to
a string ?
Answer: Some implementations provide a nonstandard function called itoa(), which converts
an integer to string.

Q.3 What do you mean by recursion?

Answer: when function calls itself known as recursion.

Q.4 What are the different storage class in C?

Answer: There are four types of storage classes.
Automatic
Extern
Regiter
Static

Q.5 What is macro?

Answer: Macros are the identifiers that represent statements or expressions. To associate
meaningful identifiers with constants, keywords, and statements or expressions.

Q.6 Can static variable be declare in header files?

Answer: You cant declare a static variable without defining it as well (this is because the
storage class modifiers static and extern are mutually exclusive). A static variable can be
defined in a header file, but this would cause each source file that included the header file to
have its own private copy of the variable, which is probably not what was intended.

Q.7 what are the purpose of main()?

Answer: The function main() invokes other functions within it.It is the first function to
be called when the program starts execution.
It is the starting function.
It returns an int value to the environment that called the program.
Recursive call is allowed for main( ) also.
It is a user-defined function

Q.8 What are the advantages of function?

Answer: It reduces the Complexity in a program by reducing the code.
Function are easily understanding and reliability and execution is faster.
It also reduces the Time to run a program.In other way,Its directly proportional to
Complexity.
Its easy to find-out the errors due to the blocks made as function definition outside
the main function.
Q.9 What does static variable mean?
Answer: There are 3 main uses for the static.
1. If you declare within a function:
It retains the value between function calls
2.If it is declared for a function name:

By default function is extern..so it will be visible from other files if the function declaration is
as static..it is invisible for the outer files
3. Static for global variables:
By default we can use the global variables from outside files If it is static global..that variable
is limited to with in the file.
Arrays

Q.1 what is difference b/w string and character array?

Answer: A major difference is: string will have static storage duration, whereas as a
character array will not, unless it is explicity specified by using the static keyword.
Actually, a string is a character array with following properties:
* the multibyte character sequence, to which we generally call string, is used to initialize an
array of static storage duration. The size of this array is just sufficient to contain these
characters plus the terminating NUL character.
* it not specified what happens if this array, i.e., string, is modified.
* Two strings of same value[1] may share same memory area. For example, in the following
declarations:
char *s1 = Calvin and Hobbes;
char *s2 = Calvin and Hobbes;
the strings pointed by s1 and s2 may reside in the same memory location. But, it is not true
for the following:
char ca1[] = Calvin and Hobbes;
char ca2[] = Calvin and Hobbes;
[1] The value of a string is the sequence of the values of the contained characters, in order.

Q.2 When does the compiler not implicitly generate the address of the first element of an
array ?
Answer: Whenever an array name appears in an expression such as

array as an operand of the sizeof operator

array as an operand of & operator

array as a string literal initializer for a character array

Then the compiler does not implicitly generate the address of the address of the first
element of an array.
Q.3 How do you print an address ?
Answer: The safest way is to use printf() (or fprintf() or sprintf()) with the %P specification.
That prints a void pointer (void*). Different compilers might print a pointer with different
formats.
Your compiler will pick a format thats right for your environment.
If you have some other kind of pointer (not a void*) and you want to be very safe, cast the
pointer to a void*:
printf( %Pn, (void*) buffer );
Q.4 What is the difference between array and pointer?
Answer: Pointers are used to manipulate data using the address. Pointers use operator to
access the data pointed to by them.
Arrays is a collection of similar datatype. Array use subscripted variables to access and
manipulate data. Array variables can be Equivalently written using pointer expression.
Q.5 What are the uses of pointer?
Answer: Pointer is used in the following cases
It is used to access array elements.
It is used for dynamic memory allocation.
It is used in Call by reference.
It is used in data structures like trees, graph, linked list etc
Q.6 What is array?
Answer: Array is a variable that hold multiple elements which has the same data type

Q.7 How to declare a array?

Answer: We can declare an array by specify its data type, name and the number of elements
the array holds between square brackets immediately following the array name.
syntax :
data_type array_name[size];
Q.8 what is the difference between arrays and pointers?
Answer: Array is collection of similar datatype. it is a static memory allocation means we
can not increment and decrement the arry size once we allocated. and we can not increment
the base address, reassign address.
Pointer is a dynamic memory allocation. we can allocate the size as we want, assigning into
another variable and base address incrementation is allowed
Q.9 What is a pointer?

Answer:Pointers are variables which stores the address of another variable. That variable
may be a scalar (including another pointer), or an aggregate (array or structure). The
pointed-to object may be part of a larger object, such as a field of a structure or an element
in an array.

Structures
Q.1 What is a structure?
Answer:Structure constitutes a super data type which represents several different data types
in a single unit. A structure can be initialized if it is static or global.
Q.2 what is the difference between class and strucrures?
Answer: By default, the members ot structures are public while that tor class is private.
structures doesnt provide something like data hiding which is provided by the
classes.
structures contains only data while class bind both data and member functions.
Q.3 What is self- referential structures?
Answer: A self-referential structure is one of the data structures which refer to the pointer to
(points) to another structure of the same type. For example, a linked list is supposed to be a
self-referential data structure. The next node of a node is being pointed, which is of the
same struct type.
Q.4 What is structure to pointers?
Answer: struct st employee, *stptr;
We point the pointer to employee with the expression stptr = &employee. Then access
the given members by de-referencing the pointer. For this, we have used another structure

selection operator which works on pointers to structures. If p is a pointer to a structure

and m is a member of that structure, then p->m.
Q.5 what is lookup table in C?
Answer: A lookup table is simply an initialized array that contains precalculated information.
They are typically used to avoid performing complex (and hence time consuming)
calculations. For example, it is well known that the speed of CRC calculations may be
significantly increased by use of a lookup table. A suitable lookup table for computing the
CRC used in SMBUS calculations.
Q.6 what is typedef in C?
Answer: typedef is a keyword in the C and The purpose of typedef is to assign alternative
names to existing types, most often those whose standard declaration is cumbersome,
potentially confusing, or likely to vary from one implementation to another.
Q.7 what is union?
Answer: A union, is a collection of variables of different types, just like a structure. However,
with unions, you can only store information in one field at any one time.
You can picture a union as like a chunk of memory that is used to store variables of different
types. Once a new value is assigned to a field, the existing data is wiped over with the new
data.
A union can also be viewed as a variable type that can contain many different variables (like
a structure), but only actually holds one of them at a time (not like a structure). This can
save memory if you have a group of data where only one of the types is used at a time. The
size of a union is equal to the size of it's largest data member. In other words, the C compiler
allocates just enough space for the largest member. This is because only one member can
be used at a time, so the size of the largest, is the most you will need.
Q.8 what is c Bit Fields ?
Answer: The constant-expression specifies the width of the field in bits. The typespecifier for the declarator must be unsigned int, signed int, or int, and the constantexpression must be a nonnegative integer value. If the value is zero, the declaration has
no declarator. Arrays of bit fields, pointers to bit fields, and functions returning bit fields are
not allowed. The optional declarator names the bit field. Bit fields can only be declared as
part of a structure. The address-of operator (&) cannot be applied to bit-field components.
Unnamed bit fields cannot be referenced, and their contents at run time are unpredictable.
They can be used as "dummy" fields, for alignment purposes. An unnamed bit field whose
width is specified as 0 guarantees that storage for the member following it in the structdeclaration-list begins on an int boundary.

Input and output

Q.1 Name the standard input and standard output?
Answer: getchar() and putchar()
Q.2 What is formatted output and formatted input?
Answer: printf() and scanf()
Q.3 The tolower() is defined in which header files?
Answer:#include<ctype.h>
Q.4 What is the proper declaration for printf()?
Answer: int printf(char *fmt,)
Q.5 What is error handling library?
Answer: Stderr and Exit
Q.6 Name the Line output and input in file?
Answer: fgets() and fputs()
Q.7 Name the functions used for storage management?
Answer: malloc() and calloc()
Q.8 Name the library where mathematical function are defined?
Answer: #include<math.h>
Q.9 Name the function which create random function?
Answer:rand()
Q.10 Name the command execution method?
Answer: system(char *s)
Q.11 What is difference b/w printf() and sprint()?
Answer: sprintf() writes data to the character array whereas printf(...) writes data to the
standard output device.
Q.12 Why does malloc(0) return valid memory address ? What's the use ?
Answer: malloc(0) does not return a non-NULL under every implementation.
An implementation is free to behave in a manner it finds
suitable, if the allocation size requested is zero. The
implmentation may choose any of the following actions:
* A null pointer is returned.
* The behavior is same as if a space of non-zero size
was requested. In this case, the usage of return
value yields to undefined-behavior.
Q.13 what is the way of accessing file in c?
Answer:Random access files in C and the following lesson will look at working with text files.
Apart from the simplest of applications, most programs have to read or write files. Maybe it's

just for reading a config file, or a text parser or something more sophisticated. The basic file
operations are

fopen - open a file- specify how its opened (read/write) and type (binary/text)

fclose - close an opened file

fread - read from a file

fwrite - write to a file

fseek/fsetpos - move a file pointer to somewhere in a file.

ftell/fgetpos - tell you where the file pointer is located.

Reference:
Ritchie Dennis M., (). The C programming Language. 2nd ed. : .
(2012). C Interview Question. [ONLINE] Available at: http://techpreparation.com/.
[Last Accessed 29 May, 2012].