ADVANCED C PROGRAMMING

Course Duration: 5 days Course Overview: This course broadens the skills of a C language programmer by introducing sophisticated problem solving techniques including the advanced use of pointers, abstract data types, data structures, portability, and optimization techniques. Skills are reinforced by hands-on laboratory exercises. LEARNING OBJECTIVES Master the use of pointers in a wide variety of problems Use sophisticated pointer techniques to solve problems involving advanced data structures such as lists, stacks, queues and trees Choose from a wide variety of data structures to implement the most efficient solution to a problem Apply the proper optimization technique to your C code Apply many portability techniques to your C code Use bit manipulation techniques for efficient solutions to problems Write programs which emphasize modern program design techniques which emphasize code reuse Write powerful C programs which make "calls" directly into the UNIX operating system through the use of system calls Decrease development time in writing applications through a more thorough understanding of sophisticated concepts in C

Prerequisites: Students should have at least six months of C programming experience. A skilled programmer who has taken an introductory C programming course could also take this course.

COURSE OUTLINE
Review of C Fundamental data types Operators Control flow constructs - If Loops Switch Derived data types Arrays and pointers Structures Unions Bit Fields Enums Functions Function fundamentals Function prototypes Return values Recursive functions Evaluation of function arguments Variable number of arguments Scope of variables Initialization Bit Manipulation Defining the problem space Operators Writing bitwise functions Circular shifts Direct lookup Mapping with bits Radix sorting Pointers Common pointer constructions Pointer arithmetic Command line arguments The environment pointer Processing arrays with pointers Simulating higher dimensional arrays Two dimensional arrays Complex declarations Pointers to functions Surrogate sorting Designing Data Types Rationale for a new data type Creating the fraction type Implementing the fraction functions Applications with fractions Creating the set type Set representation Set function implementations Data Structures Lists - What are they? Lists as arrays A list of linked elements The list data type List function implementation Other types of lists Ordered lists Circular lists Two way lists Networks A linked list application - hashing Stacks Queues Trees Optimization Techniques Where to optimize Macros Initialization Modifying data structures Caching Removing invariants from loops Logical inefficiencies Odds and ends Portability Issues Source code portability Portability with functions Arithmetic data types Bit manipulation problems Portable bit masks Pointer problems ANSI vs non-ANSI Odds and ends

Appendix 1: Software Tools Compiler options Conditional compilation Debugging with the assert macro Creating libraries A graphics example The make command The source code control system Appendix 2: Useful Library Functions The system function Exit and atexit The signal function Strtok Memcpy and memset Qsort Bsearch Strstr String validation functions

Appendix 3: I/O File Access System calls vs librarycalls Opening disk files Access mode Errors in opening files I/O library calls The scanf functions Closing files Servicing errors Binary I/O