C for Geeks

Prerequisites

Windows users should set up WSL.

• basic commandline fu (navigation, file / folder manipulation, ...)
• your favourite text editor
• GCC / Clang installed

Syllabus

See my C programming repo for code examples.

• Lecture -2: mathematics background

  • numbers and their representation (base 2, 8, 10, 16)
  • bits and bytes, and their limitations
  • ASCII
  • boolean logic
  • bitwise operations
  • set theory
  • functions
  • types

• Lecture -1: computer architecture

  • CPU / memory
  • op-codes
  • locality

• Lecture 0: empty program

  • syntax
  • void
  • compiler warnings / errors

• Lecture 1: Hello World

  • use of standard library
  • man-pages

• Lecture 2: variables

  • types
  • assignment
  • sizeof
  • different ways to write a number
  • boolean in C
  • scope

• Lecture 3: Simple I/O

  • puts / printf
  • getchar / scanf

• Lecture 4: arithmetic

  • precedence
  • integer arithmetic
  • floating point arithmetic
  • bitwise operations
  • boolean operations
    • short circuit evaluation
  • comparison operations
  • compound assignment
  • increment / decrement operators
    • sequence points

• Lecture 5: Branching

  • if / else

• Lecture 6: Loops

  • while / do while
  • for
  • break / continue
  • goto

• Exercise: Fizz-Buzz

  • Output all numbers from 1 to 100 (one per line).
  • Any number divisible by 3 is replaced by fizz.
  • Any number divisible by 5 is replaced by buzz.
  • Any number divisible by 3 and 5 is replaced by fizzbuzz.

• Exercise: Zapfen

  • Read in integer from user.
  • Continuously multiply with numbers from 2 to 12 (inclusive).
  • Then continuously divide by numbers from 2 to 12 (inclusive).
  • Try this for large user inputs.
  • Try this with unsigned.
  • Try this with float.

• Exercise: Mastermind

  • See rand(3).
  • Include time.h and call srand(time(NULL)); once before using rand to seed the random number generator (RNG).
  • Randomly pick 4 integers between 1 and 6 (inclusive).
  • User has to guess the combination by entering a sequence of numbers separated by spaces.
  • User can guess 10 times.
  • Game ends when user guessed correctly or all guesses have been exhausted.
  • Program will output hints on wrong guesses.

• Exercise: Prime Numbers

  • Output all prime numbers from 1 to 100.

• Lecture 7: Functions

  • normal
  • recursion

• Exercise: Better Prime Numbers

  • Rewrite the prime numbers exercise to use a function is_prime.

• Lecture 8: Pointers

• Lecture 9: Arrays

  • 1D
  • more dimensions
  • strings
  • pointer-decay

• Exercise: Pascal's triangle

  • Calculate the first 10 rows of Pascal's triangle and print them.
  • Use an array.

• Exercise: Levenshtein distance

  • Read in two strings from the user.
  • Output the corresponding Levenshtein distance.
  • Put the Levenshtein calculation in a dedicated function.

• Lecture 10: Enums

• Lecture 11: struct

  • union
  • recursive structures

• Exercise: Conway's Game of Life

  • See fopen(3) and fwrite(3)
  • See PBM file format.
  • Use hard-coded field size and simulation step count.
  • Initialise the field with random population.
  • Simulate and store each frame as file (eg frame_072.pbm).
  • Use convert(1) (part of Imagemagick) to create an animated GIF.
    • Do not invoke convert from your program, use a Bash script.

• Exercise: Mandelbrot

  • Implement a typical visualisation of the Mandelbrot set.
  • You can either use the PGM format or print it as ASCII art.

...