Features of C Programming Language
The C programming language offers various features and functionalities to the programmers. Nowadays, Java and Python are the most used programming languages in the world. But many programmers still use the C programming language to develop applications, games, and many others. Especially today, The C programming language is used by multiple programmers in various domains.
But a question arises, Why are the programmers still using the C programming languages? What are the features that the C language is providing?
Let’s discuss the features of the C programming below.
Features of C Programming Language
1. Portability
In C, you can execute a block of code in different environments. Suppose, you create a program in one platform and you are running or modifying the program in other platforms. Portability is one of the best features of the C programming language.
2. Structured/Modular Programming language
In C, you can break the program into small blocks of code with the help of a function. Instead of writing a long and complex code, you can divide the program into small blocks of code as functions then you can perform multiple tasks such as finding the area of square, rectangle, circle etc. Function is used for code reusability.
3. Simple and Efficient
The C programming language is easy to implement. The syntax of the C programming language is easy to understand. If you are confused about which programming language you should learn as a beginner then the C programming language is the best choice for you. It is efficient and simple to learn and use.
4. Speed
It compiles and executes faster than Java or Python. Because C is a compiler based programming language and Java and Python are an interpreter based programming language.
5. Popular
The C programming language is used in making operating systems and embedded systems. It is one of the most widely used programming languages in the world.
6. Rich Library
The C programming language has a rich library which offers useful built-in functions. Apart from these functions, you can also add or define user-defined functions to the library. These functions help in solving numerous types of problems easily and also help in better and clean coding.
7. Dynamism
The C programming language supports dynamic memory allocation. It is used for utilizing and managing memory. C library has some functions such as malloc(), calloc(), free() etc. to perform dynamic memory allocation.
8. Case Sensitive
C programming language is case sensitive. If we declare two variables such as “X” and “x” as an integer then the C language treats these two variables differently.
9. Pointer
Pointer is one of the most useful features in C. With pointers, you can work with the memory in C. You can also use pointers with arrays, structures, functions etc.
10. Recursion
In C, you can define a function inside of a function. This technique is called Recursion. This will help you in code reusability.
11. Middle Level Language
It has features of high level languages and it has capabilities of assembly language.
12. Easy to Extend
You can add more features and functionalities to the already written C program code. With that, you can perform more operations.
13. Statically Type
It is also known as statically typed language. It means that the variables of a C program will be checked during compilation but not at the run time. Each time, you have to mention the type of variable used.
14. General Purpose Language
The C programming language is being used in various domains like photo editing softwares to system programming. Also it is used to develop databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle etc.
Why is C popular?
The C programming language has left marks in pretty much every area of Science and Technology. C offers many functionalities and features that make the C programming language popular. Almost every renowned and successful programmer is very much familiar with the C programming language.
C has a vast collection of built-in functions which will make your coding a lot easier. It also supports dynamic memory allocation. It is a compiler-based programming language and faster than interpreter-based languages like Java or Python.
Summary
In this tutorial, we have discussed the features that C offers which makes it unique and useful. We also discussed the popularity of the C programming language. It’s been so many years since the creation of the C programming language but still it is being used by many developers for developing softwares that make our life easier.