3.1 INTRODUCTION

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The C programming language was developed at Bell Laboratories in the Early 1970's. The language was intended to provide a high level framework for data and functions while allowing highly efficient programs. By the 1980s the language had entered widespread usage and was in use for the development of many high level programs. By the 1990s most new software projects were written in C. Some of the advantages of C are listed below.

Machine Portable, which means that it requires only small changes to run on other computers.

Very Fast, almost as fast as assembly language.

Emphasizes structured programming, by focusing on functions and subroutines.

You may easily customize 'C' to your own needs.

Suited to Large and Complex Programs.

Very Flexible, allows you to create your own functions.

More recently C++ was developed to add object-oriented capabilities to C. In simple terms the object oriented extensions allow data and functions to be combined together. In general the advantages that C++ add over C are those listed below. In general, any C program can be compiled with C++, while C++ programs will often not compile with a C compiler.

Reusable source code can reduce duplication

Encapsulation of data and functions reduces errors

It is easy to interchange software modules

This chapter will act as a basic introduction or review of C and C++ programming. C programming is discussed first to lay the foundations, and this is followed with a discussion of C++ programming extensions. The end of the chapter discusses structured program design techniques. If you are already fluent in C and C++ I suggest you skip this chapter.