A Quick C Refresher

Back when I went to undergrad, the standard for learning programming at the time was to learn it in C and C++. I had to take other electives to cover scripting languages, and I didn’t even touch Java until after I entered the workforce. Aside from a brief stint of working with embedded systems and reverse engineering in grad school, I really haven’t actually used C all that much since I graudated so long ago. However, recently, I’ve been playing around with development on the WonderWitch for the WonderSwan, as documented in prior blogs, and it’s caused me to have to blow the dust off my knowledge of C. So I figured, for my own benefit, it’d be a good idea to give myself a crash course refresher on it. That means I’m not going to explain basic concepts - this is going to be pure syntax, and it’s not gonna be exhaustive.

Data Types

More data types are on Wikipedia

Main Function

#include <stdio.h>

void main() {

    printf("Hello, world!");

    return;
}

Using printf

int printf(const char *format, ...);

Format specifier:

%[flags][width][.precision][length]specifier

More on printf formats here

Operators

Flow Control

if

if(condition) {
   ...
}
else if( condition ) {
   ...
}
else {
   ...
}

while

while( condition ) {
   ...
}

do while

do {
    ...
} while( condition )

for

for( initializer ; condition ; increment) {
    ...
}

switch

switch(expression) {
    case value:
        ...
        break;
    default:
        ...
}

Functions

returnType name(...values) {
    ...
}

Arrays

type name[size] = {...values};

int test[10] = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 };

int test[2][5] = {{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}, {6, 7, 8, 9, 10}};

Strings

char test[5] = "hello";

Strings must be null terminated (\0).

strcpy

char *strcpy(char *dest, char *src);

This function is potentially dangerous as it can result in a buffer overrun.

strncpy

char *strncpy(char *dest, char *source, size_t);

This function is potentially dangerous as it doesn’t guarantee a null terminated string.

strlen

size_t strlen(char *src);

strcat

char *strcat(char *dest, char *src);

strncat

char *strncat(char *dest, char *src, size_t size);

strcmp

int *strcmp(char *stringOne, char *stringTwo);

More string functions can be found here

Structures

struct someName {
    type variableName;
    ...
}

...

struct someName myName;
myName.variableName;

Preprocessor directives

#define PI 3.14
#define DOUBLEPI (PI * 2)
#define MULTIPI(x) (PI * X)

Pointers

int *myPointer;
int myValue = 10;

myPointer = &myValue;

// *myPointer = 10
*myPointer += 10;

// myValue = 20