Book Image

Learn C Programming - Second Edition

By : Jeff Szuhay
Book Image

Learn C Programming - Second Edition

By: Jeff Szuhay

Overview of this book

The foundation for many modern programming languages such as C++, C#, JavaScript, and Go, C is widely used as a system programming language as well as for embedded systems and high-performance computing. With this book, you'll be able to get up to speed with C in no time. The book takes you through basic programming concepts and shows you how to implement them in the C programming language. Throughout the book, you’ll create and run programs that demonstrate essential C concepts, such as program structure with functions, control structures such as loops and conditional statements, and complex data structures. As you make progress, you’ll get to grips with in-code documentation, testing, and validation methods. This new edition expands upon the use of enumerations, arrays, and additional C features, and provides two working programs based on the code used in the book. What's more, this book uses the method of intentional failure, where you'll develop a working program and then purposely break it to see what happens, thereby learning how to recognize possible mistakes when they happen. By the end of this C programming book, you’ll have developed basic programming skills in C that can be easily applied to other programming languages and have gained a solid foundation for you to build on as a programmer.
Table of Contents (38 chapters)
1
Part 1: C Fundamentals
10
Part 2: Complex Data Types
19
Part 3: Memory Manipulation
22
Part 4: Input and Output
28
Part 5: Building Blocks for Larger Programs

Performing operations on structures – functions

Except for assignment, there are no intrinsic operations for structures. To perform any operation on a single structure or with two structures, a function must be written to perform the desired operation.

For example, earlier, we mentioned a function that can be used to compare two structures for equality. This must be done component by component, as follows:

bool isEqual( struct Card c1 , struct Card c2 )  {
  if( c1.suit != c2.suit ) return false;
  if( c1.face != c2.face ) return false;
  return true;
}

Notice that we did not compare every component of struct Card in this function. We'd only have to do that for absolute comparison and when we need to compare each and every component of both structures. This just isn't necessary for our card example.

Does it make sense to perform any or all mathematical operations on two structures? In general, no, but...