History of the C Programming Language
The C programming language was developed and introduced at Bell Laboratories, USA, in the 1970s. Although its primary purpose was to create the Unix operating system, its capabilities soon extended to a broader range of applications, such as building programming software.
Over time, the popularity of the C programming steadily rose, leading it to become one of the most preferred technologies. This shift in preference saw the decline of once-popular languages like Pascal and Fortran, paving the way for C to maintain its position as one of the top languages even today.
Popularity of C Programming Language
The C programming language is portable, efficient, and simple. Moreover, control statements and compilers make other programming functionalities easier to perform. Due to these provisions, the C language has witnessed increasing popularity among the programming community.
Control Statements in the C Programming Language
The C language capabilities extend to a broad scope, mainly due to the control statements. These control statements include decision-making statements, iteration statements, and jump statements. Decision-making statements, such as if, if-else, and switch, allow for flexible decision-making based on statements and variables. Iteration statements, like for-loop, while-loop, and do-while loop, enable the desired output by repeating input values. Jump statements, including go-to, facilitate program flow navigation by jumping to other programming parts.
Compilers in the C Programming
C language is best suited to perform business logic due to the presence of compilers.
Including a compiler and interpreter offered this technology a competitive advantage over other programming languages, especially for technologies existing during that time.
Compilers and interpreters
C was the first programming language that included compilers.
All the programming languages before C, such as Pascal and Cobol, run with the help of interpreters.
Certain drawbacks are associated with using interpreters alone. For example, the interpreter’s main aim is to convert the
source code into machine code. However, while translating, if there are errors in the code, the computer shuts down abruptly instead of showing the errors. The sudden shutting down causes various complications while limiting the interpreter’s use.
Compilers, along with interpreters were introduced to C language because of the drawbacks of using interpreters alone.
Use of Compilers:
- The compiler helps in checking the source code for any mistakes.
- If there are any mistakes in the source code, compilers inform the programmer.
- After the programmer rectifies the errors, the compiler transfers the code to the interpreter to convert the source code to the byte code.
Thus, compilers rectified interpreters’ drawbacks. Instead of shutting down computers, compilers helped correct mistakes before sending the code for execution.