Best Practices in C Programming

C programming language offers various types of features and functionalities to the programmers. Many beginners or aspirants face problems while coding. In this tutorial, we talked over some best practices of programming in C. This tutorial will help you to learn the best practices and rules of C programming. If you wanna be a better programmer then you should read through these practices. You can implement these rules and practices in other programming languages also.

Best Practices in C Programming

You have to think out of the box if you want to be a better programmer. These rules and practices will help you gain an advantage over other programmers. As we know that the C programming language includes lots of features and techniques and with that, you can make the best use of it.

Following are some tips and rules to improve your programming in C

1. You should follow the C standards. According to it, you always have to make use of the int data type before the main() function and it should always return 0. One should not use the void data type before the main function and it is bad practice.

2. Make use of logical variable names.

• We use ‘temp’ as a temporary variable for storing the value of a variable in certain situations. Like, you can use temp for swapping two variables.
• The lowercase ‘i’ alphabet is used as an identifier while using loops in C.
• The ‘flag’ identifier is being used to carry on the next process. It includes 0 or 1 and true or false.

3. According to the C standards, the gets() function is not safe to use in your program code. The gets() function is vulnerable to buffer overflow attacks. To avoid this, you can make use of the fgets() function.

4. It is a bad practice when you use white spaces for indentation in your program code. To use proper indentation in your program code, you can use escape sequences. It is used for displaying the output with standard formatting.

5. Instead of writing the same block of code repeated times, you can make use of functions in your program code. It is a bad practice when you write all the codes inside the main function. It also helps you in reducing code readability and code redundancy.

6. Don’t just use shorthand notations in your program code. It is often difficult to understand.
It is a very good practice to use comments in your program code. With the help of comments, you can better understand the program code. It is a good practice to write comments in your program code.

7. Before compiling your program code, always proofread the entire code that you have written.

8. If you are doing loops in your program code then you have to be careful because if you did any mistake then it will cause an infinite loop.

9. Always save your program code before compiling it.

10. Also, you have to be more careful of syntax and semantic errors.

11. You can make use of bit fields to reduce the usage of computer memory. It is easy to implement bit fields in your code.

12. You can perform error handling in your code. For example, dividing a number by 0 will throw you an error.

13. You have to avoid declaring the size of the array during initialization. You will face an error if you provide a larger size than the size of that array.

14. Don’t use nested if-else statements. Instead of that, make use of switch statements. It is more efficient.

15. When using pointers, you should never leave pointers uninitialized.

Improving coding skills in C programming

Above, we discussed the best practices of C programming. Following are some of the logical and practical methods to improve your coding skills in programming.

1. First, read and analyze the given problem. Make a step-by-step solution to that problem. Understand the problem clearly.

2. Find various approaches to solve after analyzing the given problem.

3. After finding all the approaches and methods, choose an efficient or an optimal solution to solve that problem. You have to make your program code simple and easy to understand. Make use of all in-built functions which may come handy for solving that problem.

4. On the internet, you will find various predefined algorithms to approach many problems. Or, you can create your own algorithm. You can analyze the predefined algorithms which are developed by skilled developers and programmers. It will help you to improve your coding experience.

5. Use trial and error methods to prevent errors in your program code. Make use of printf() function to check if the value is right or wrong. It will come handy when you are dealing with complex programs.

6. You have to have patience. You cannot improve your programming in one day. But you have to explore more and more. The only way to improve your coding is through persistent practice and eagerness to learn more.

7. Just start with simple and easy concepts. If you jump straight to advance then you will face problems. Learn the basics first.

8. You have to make use of mathematics to solve various problems. So, don’t just think that mathematics is hard to implement. Once you practice more and more, it will become easy for you.

9. Test your knowledge in C programming through online quizzes.

10. Don’t try to learn all programming languages. Instead of it, just stick to one. C and C++ are the base for all programming languages.

Summary

In this tutorial, we discussed the best practices of the C programming language. We also discussed how you can improve your coding skills in C programming. These tips and rules apply not just for C programming language, it applies to all programming languages. It is your responsibility to apply each of them and improve your coding skills.