Features of C Programming Language

C Language is a very famous language amoung software engineering community. In this tutorial, we will learn about features of C Language in detail.

C is a procedural programming language, which was initially developed by Dennis Ritchie in the year 1972. It is a widely used language. It has all the required features that a developer would expect a programming language to have. It provides many features which are listed below.

1. Procedural Language

A procedural language is a sort of computer language, in which predefined instruction are executed to complete a program. Procedural languages are used to specify steps that the computer takes to solve a problem. C language is also a procedural language, in which program is written into various steps & functions.

2. Simple

C is a very popular programming language, which is used for building software in hardware configurations, operating systems and application domains. The syntax style of C programming is easy to comprehend and can be used to design applications that were previously designed by assembly language. In high schools or colleges, C is generally taught as an introductory programming language as it is a well-established fact that it is easier to learn any other programming language in the long run if you are well acquainted with C.

3. Fast & Performant

The list of features offered by many recent programming languages are longer than that of the C programming language. However, more features require more processing. C Language, on the other hand, requires less processing and is faster and more effective because it only has the necessary functionality. Statically-typed languages are faster than dynamically-typed programming languages. Since C Language is a statically-typed language, so it is faster then other dynamically-typed languages.

4. Modular

Modularity refers to the process of dividing an entire program into smaller individual units like: functions, libraries, and modules. In c programming, we can break our code into smaller functions or libraries. The more modular a programming language is, the more reusable its code is. By using modular approach, it becomes very easy for a developer to manage large codebases.

5. Dynamic Memory Allocation

C language supports memory allocation at runtime, which is also called Dynamic memory allocation. It supports and provides many helpful functions. With the help of this feature, memory can be allocated during the execution of a program as per the program requirements. malloc() function allocates single block and calloc() function allocates multiple blocks of requested memory. realloc() function reallocates the memory that is occupied by either malloc() or calloc(). The free() function helps in freeing the dynamically allocated memory.

6. Pointers Support

C Language provides the Pointer functionality, which allows developers to directly interact with the memory. A pointer is a variable that stores the memory address of some other variable as its value. It makes working with functions, arrays, and memory easier and efficient.

7. General Purpose Language

C is a general-purpose programming language that is used for building softwares. It implies that it is suitable for accomplishing various purposes, ranging from developing games, editing photos to designing compilers and system software, which can directly interact with hardware. Unix is developed using C language only. C is an ideal choice for developing applications and drivers for embedded systems.

8. Mid Level Language

C programming language is known as middle-level language. It is due to its capibilities, which offers low-level access to the computer hardware. It also has the features of a high-level language which were introduced over time during various releases. It can be used for both system programming for the purpose of writing operating systems, as well as application programming for the purpose of creating general-purpose utility softwares.

9. Extensible

Programs written in C language can be extended easily. It means we can add additional functionality in existing C language code by writing additional code for that. C language is built in a way that it can easily adopt new features.

10. Syntax Based Language

Syntax Based is another feature of C Language. C is a strongly tight syntax-based programming language. If any language follows rules and regulation very strictly known as strongly tight syntax-based language. Example C, C++, Java, .net etc. If any language does not follow rules and regulations very strictly known as loosely tight syntax-based language. Example HTML.