C is a high-level structured oriented programming language, used in general purpose programming, developed by Dennis Ritchie at AT&T Bell labs, USA between 1969 and 1973.
- In 1988, C was formalized by American National Standard Institute (ANSI)
- C was invented to write UNIX operating system
- C is a successor of B language
- Linux OS, PHP and MySQL is written in C
- C has been written in assembly language
Uses of C language
In the beginning C was used for developing system applications e.g. :- Database Systems
- Language Interpreters
- Compilers and Assemblers
- Operating Systems
- Network Drivers
- Word Processors
C has become very popular for various reasons
- One of the early programming languages
- Still the best programming language to learn quickly
- C language is reliable, simple and easy to use
- C language is a structured language
- Modern programming concepts are based on C
- It can be compiled on a variety of computer platforms
- Universities preferred to add C programming in their courseware
Features of C language
- C is a robust language with rich set of built-in functions and operators.
- Programs written in C are efficient and fast.
- C is highly portable, programs once written in C can be run on another machines with minor or no modification.
- C is basically a collection of C library functions, we can also create our own function and add it to the C library.