1.1 History of C Language


C programming language developed at AT & T bell laboratory in 1972. In the starting this language had the name "Basic Combined Programming Language” (BCPL) and called B Language.


B language was developed in 1960 at Cambridge University. B

language was modified by Dennis Ritchie in the Bell laboratory in

1972. He gave new name as C. Actually, Dennis Ritchie was

working on UNIX operating system. UNIX operating system is

developed using C and assembly language. First time, C language

was provided with UNIX operating system. C language is very easy

to learn and very much efficient for all type of programming

problems so it became very popular. Now a days, C language is

available in every operating system. At last ANSI (American

National Standards Institute) has developed a standardized

definition to maintain informality of the language.





1.2 Features of C Language


  • C is general purpose, structured programming language.
  • C is portable language. Portable means programs written in
  • C language can be transfer from one computer to anothervery efficiently

  • C language can be used for any type of programming
  • problems. C can be used for scientific, commercial, general purpose as well as for operating system designing also.

• Programs written in C language executes faster than other high level programming languages.

• C is most powerful language because it has rich set of built in functions, powerful operators, variety of data types and several standard library functions.

  • C language is middle level language so writing a code in C is. easier than assembly language.
  • in C language we can manipulate byte, words and addresses similar to the assembly language.

  • In C we can handle decimal, hexadecimal and octal data.

• System level programming is possible using C language.

  • C provides good looping and control structures like while

loop, for loops etc.