Programming in C

Unit 3

ES-101/102

1
 MODULE 3

LECTURE NOTE 24
STRUCTURE AND UNION

Definition

A Structure is a user defined data type that can store related information together. The variable
within a structure are of different data types and each has a name that is used to select it from the
structure. C arrays allow you to define type of variables that can hold several data items of the
same kind but structure is another user defined data type available in C programming, which
allows you to combine data items of different kinds.

Structures are used to represent a record, Suppose you want to keep track of your books in a
library. You might want to track the following attributes about each book:

• Title

• Author

• Subject

• Book ID

Structure Declaration

It is declared using a keyword struct followed by the name of the structure. The variables of the
structure are declared within the structure.

Example:

Struct struct-name

data_type var-name;

data_type var-name;

};
Structure Initialization

Assigning constants to the members of the structure is called initializing of structure.

Syntax:

struct struct_name

data _type member_name1;

data _type member_name2;

} struct_var={constant1,constant2};

Accessing the Members of a structure

A structure member variable is generally accessed using a ‘.’ operator.

Syntax: strcut_var.

member_name;

The dot operator is used to select a particular member of the structure. To assign value to the
individual

Data members of the structure variable stud, we write,

stud.roll=01;

stud.name=”Rahul”;

To input values for data members of the structure variable stud, can be written as,

scanf(“%d”,&stud.roll);

scanf(‘’%s”,&stud.name);

To print the values of structure variable stud, can be written as:

printf(“%s”,stud.roll);

printf(“%f”,stud.name);
QUESTIONS

1. Write a program using structures to read and display the information about an employee.
2. Write a program to read, display, add and subtract two complex numbers.
3. Write a program to enter two points and then calculate the distance between them.
 LECTURE NOTE 25
NESTED STRUCTURES

The structure that contains another structure as its members is called a nested structure or a
structure within a structure is called nested structure. The structure should be declared separately
and then be grouped into high level structure.

1. Write a program to read and display the information of all the students in the class using
nested structure.

Passing Structures through pointers

Pointer to a structure is a variable that holds the address of a structure. The syntax to declare
pointer to a structure can be given as:

strcut struct_name *ptr;

To assign address of stud to the pointer using address operator(&) we would write

ptr_stud=&stud;

To access the members of the structure (->) operator is used.

for example

Ptr_stud->name=Raj;

SELF REFERENTIAL STRUCTURE

Self –referential structures are those structures that contain a reference to data of its same type as
that of structure.

Example

struct node

int val;

struct node*next;

};
 Pointers to Structures

You can define pointers to structures in very similar way as you define pointer to any other
variable as follows:

struct books *struct_pointer;

Now, you can store the address of a structure variable in the above defined pointer variable. To
find the address of a structure variable, place the & operator before the structure's name as
follows:

struct_pointer = &book1;
To access the members of a structure using a pointer to that structure, you must use the ->

operator as follows:

struct_pointer->title;

1 .Write a program to display, add and subtract two time defined using hour, minutes and values
of seconds.

2.Write a program, using pointer to structure, to initialize the members in the structure. Use
functions to print the students information.

3.Write a program using an array of pointers to a structure to read and display the data of a student.
 LECTURE NOTE 26
UNION
Union is a collection of variables of different data types, in case of union information can only be
stored In one field at any one time. A union is a special data type available in C that enables you
to store different data types in the same memory location. You can define a union with many
members, but only one member can contain a value at any given time. Unions provide an efficient
way of using the same memory location for multi-purpose.

Declaring Union

union union-name

data_type var-name;

data_type var-name;

};

The union tag is optional and each member definition is a normal variable definition, such as int
i; or float f; or any other valid variable definition. At the end of the union's definition, before the
final semicolon, you can specify one or more union variables but it is optional. Here is the way
you would define a union type named Data which has the three members i, f, and str. Now, a
variable of Data type can store an integer, a floating-point number, or a string of characters. This
means that a single variable ie. same memory location can be used to store multiple types of data.
You can use any built-in or user defined data types inside a union based on your requirement.

The memory occupied by a union will be large enough to hold the largest member of the union.
For example, in above example Data type will occupy 20 bytes of memory space because this is
the maximum space which can be occupied by character string. Following is the example which
will display total memory size occupied by the above union:

Accessing a Member of a Union

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
union Data

{
 int i;
float f;

char str[20];
};
int main( )
{
union Data data;
data.i = 10;

data.f = 220.5;
strcpy( data.str, "C Programming");
printf( "data.i : %d\n", data.i);
printf( "data.f : %f\n", data.f);
printf( "data.str : %s\n", data.str);
return 0;

Dot operator can be used to access a member of the union . he member access operator is coded
as a period between the union variable name and the union member that we wish to access. You
would use union keyword to define variables of union type. Following is the example to explain
usage of union:

Exercises:
1. Write a program to define a union and a structure both having exactly the same members.
Using the sizeof operator, print the size of structure variable as well as union variable and
comment on the result.
2. Write a program to define a structure for a hotel that has the member’s mane, address,
grade, number of rooms, and room charges. Write a function to print the names of the
hotels in a particular grade. Also write a function to print names of a hotel that have room
charges less than the specified value.
 LECTURE NOTE 27

POINTERS

A pointer is a variable that contains the address of a variable. Pointers are much used in C, partly
because they are sometimes the only way to express a computation, and partly because they
usually lead to more compact and efficient code than can be obtained in other ways. Pointers and
arrays are closely related; this chapter also explores this relationship and shows how to exploit it.
Pointers have been lumped with the goto statement as a marvelous way to create impossible to
understand programs. This is certainly true when they are used carelessly, and it is easy to create
pointers that point somewhere unexpected. With discipline, however, pointers can alsobe used to
achieve clarity and simplicity. This is the aspect that we will try to illustrate.
The main change in ANSI C is to make explicit the rules about how pointers can be manipulated,
in effect mandating what good programmers already practice and good compilers already
enforce. In addition, the type void * (pointer to void ) replaces char * as the proper type for a
generic pointer.

Pointers and Addresses

Let us begin with a simplified picture of how memory is organized. A typical machine has an
array of consecutively numbered or addressed memory cells that may be manipulated individually
or in contiguous groups. One common situation is that any byte can be a char , a pair of one-byte
cells can be treated as a short integer, and four adjacent bytes form a long . A pointer is a group
of cells (often two or four) that can hold an address. So if c is a char and p is a pointer that
points to it, we could represent the situation this way:

The unary operator &gives the address of an object, so the statement

p = &c;
assigns the address of c to the variable p, and p is said to ``point to'' c. The &operator only
applies to objects in memory: variables and array elements. It cannot be applied to expressions,
constants, or register variables.
The unary operator * is the indirection or dereferencing operator; when applied to a pointer, it
accesses the object the pointer points to. Suppose that x and y are integers and ipis a pointer to

int
. This artificial sequence shows how to declare a pointer and how to use &and *:
 int x = 1, y = 2, z[10];
int *ip;
ip = &x;
y = *ip;
*ip = 0;
ip = &z[0];

The declaration of x, y, and z are what we've seen all along. The declaration of the pointer ip.

int *ip;

is intended as a mnemonic; it says that the expression *ip is an int . The syntax of the declaration
for a variable mimics the syntax of expressions in which the variable might appear. This
reasoning applies to function declarations as well. For example,

double *dp, atof(char *);

says that in an expression *dp and atof(s) have values of double , and that the argument of
atof is
a pointer to char .
You should also note the implication that a pointer is constrained to point to a particular kind of
object: every pointer points to a specific data type. If ippoints to the integer x, then *ip can occur
in any context where x could, so

*ip = *ip + 10;

increments *ip by 10.

The unary operators * and &bind more tightly than arithmetic operators, so the assignment

y = *ip + 1

takes whatever ippoints at, adds 1, and assigns the result to y, while

*ip += 1

increments what ippoints to, as do

++*ip and (*ip)++

ip instead of what it points to, because unary operators like * and ++ associate right to left.
Finally, since pointers are variables, they can be used without dereferencing. For example, if iq is
The parentheses are necessary in this last example; without them, the expression would increment
another pointer to int ,
iq = ip

copies the contents of ipinto iq, thus making iqpoint to whatever ippointed to.

Pointers and Function Arguments

Since C passes arguments to functions by value, there is no direct way for the called function to
alter a variable in the calling function. For instance, a sorting routine might exchange two out-
oforder arguments with a function called swap . It is not enough to write

swap(a, b);

where the swap function is defined as

void swap(int x, int y)

{
int temp;
temp = x;
x = y;
y = temp;
}
Because of call by value, swap can't affect the arguments a and b in the routine that called it.
The function above swaps copies of a and b. The way to obtain the desired effect is for the
calling program to pass pointers to the values to be changed:

swap(&a, &b);

Since the operator & produces the address of a variable, &a is a pointer to a. In swap itself, the
parameters are declared as pointers, and the operands are accessed indirectly through them.

void swap(int *px, int *py) /* interchange *px and *py */

{
int temp;

temp =

*px;

*px = *py;

*py = temp;

Pointer arguments enable a function to access and change objects in the function that called it. As
an example, consider a function getint that performs free-format input conversion by breaking a
stream of characters into integer values, one integer per call. getint has to return the value it
found and also signal end of file when there is no more input. These values have to be passed
back by separate paths, for no matter what value is used for EOF , that could also be the value of an
input integer.
One solution is to have getint return the end of file status as its function value, while using a
pointer argument to store the converted integer back in the calling function. This is the scheme
used by scanf as well

The following loop fills an array with integers by calls to getint :

int n, array[SIZE], getint(int *);

for (n = 0; n < SIZE &&getint(&array[n]) != EOF; n++)
;

Each call sets array[n] to the next integer found in the input and increments n. Notice that it is
essential to pass the address of array[n] to getint . Otherwise there is no way for getint to
communicate the converted integer back to the caller.
Our version of getint returns EOF for end of file, zero if the next input is not a number, and a
positive value if the input contains a valid number.

#include <ctype.h>
int getch(void);
void ungetch(int);
int getint(int
*pn)
{
int c, sign;
while (isspace(c = getch()));
if (!isdigit(c) && c != EOF && c != '+' && c != '-')
{
ungetch(c); return 0;
}
sign = (c == '-') ? -1 : 1;
if (c == '+' || c ==
'-') c = getch();
for (*pn = 0; isdigit(c), c = getch())
*pn = 10 * *pn + (c - '0');
*pn *= sign;
if (c != EOF)
ungetch(c);
return c;
}

Throughout getint , *pn is used as an ordinary int variable. We have also used getch and
ungetch so the one extra character that must be read can be pushed back onto the input.
 LECTURE NOTE 28

Pointers and Arrays

In C, there is a strong relationship between pointers and arrays, strong enough that pointers and
arrays should be discussed simultaneously. Any operation that can be achieved by array
subscripting can also be done with pointers. The pointer version will in general be faster but, at
least to the uninitiated, somewhat harder to understand. The declaration

int a[10];

defines an array of size 10, that is, a block of 10 consecutive objects named a[0] , a[1] , .,a[9] .
The notation a[i] refers to the i-th element of the array. If pa is a pointer to an integer, declared
as

int *pa;
then the assignment

pa = &a[0];

sets pa to point to element zero of a; that is, pa contains the address of a[0] . Now the
assignment

x =*pa;

will copy the contents of a[0] into x.

If pa points to a particular element of an array, then by definition pa+1 points to the next
element, pa+i points ielements after pa, and pa-i points ielements before. Thus, if pa points to
a[0] , refers to the contents of a[1] , pa+i is the address of a[i] , and *(pa+i) is the
*(pa+1)
contents of a[i] . These remarks are true regardless of the type or size of the variables in the array

a
. The meaning of ``adding 1 to a pointer,'' and by extension, all pointer arithmetic, is that pa+1
points to the next object, and pa+i points to the i-th object beyond pa. The correspondence
between indexing and pointer arithmetic is very close. By definition, the value of a variable or
expression of type array is the address of element zero of the array. Thus after the assignment

pa = &a[0];

pa and a have identical values. Since the name of an array is a synonym for the location of the
initial element, the assignment pa=&a[0] can also be written as

pa = a;

Rather more surprising, at first sight, is the fact that a reference to a[i] can also be written as
*( . In evaluating a[i] , C converts it to *(a+i) immediately; the two forms are equivalent.
a+i)
Applying the operator &to both parts of this equivalence, it follows that &a[i] and a+i are also
identical: a+i is the address of the i-th element beyond a. As the other side of this coin, if pa is a

pointer, expressions might use it with a subscript; pa[i] is identical to *(pa+i) . In short, an
array-and-index expression is equivalent to one written as a pointer and offset.
There is one difference between an array name and a pointer that must be kept in mind. A pointer
is a variable, so pa=a and pa++ are legal. But an array name is not a variable; constructions like
a=pa and a++ are illegal.
When an array name is passed to a function, what is passed is the location of the initial element.
Within the called function, this argument is a local variable, and so an array name parameter is a
pointer, that is, a variable containing an address. We can use this fact to write another version of
strlen , which computes the length of a string.

int strlen(char *s)

{
int n;
for (n = 0; *s != '\0',
s++) n++;
return n;
}

Since s is a pointer, incrementing it is perfectly legal; s++ has no effect on the character string in
the function that called strlen , but merely increments strlen 's private copy of the pointer. That
means that calls like

strlen("hello,
world");
strlen(array);
strlen(ptr);

all work.
As formal parameters in a function definition,

char s[]; and char *s;

are equivalent; we prefer the latter because it says more explicitly that the variable is a pointer.
When an array name is passed to a function, the function can at its convenience believe that it has
been handed either an array or a pointer, and manipulate it accordingly. It can even use both
notations if it seems appropriate and clear.
It is possible to pass part of an array to a function, by passing a pointer to the beginning of the
subarray. For example, if a is an array,

f(&a[2]) and f(a+2)

both pass to the function fthe address of the subarray that starts at a[2] . Within f, the parameter
declaration can read
f(intarr[]) { ... } or f(int *arr) { ... }

So as far as f is concerned, the fact that the parameter refers to part of a larger array is of no
consequence.
If one is sure that the elements exist, it is also possible to index backwards in an array; p[-1] , p[-

2]
, and so on are syntactically legal, and refer to the elements that immediately precede p[0] . Of
course, it is illegal to refer to objects that are not within the array bound
 LECTURE NOTE 29
Address Arithmetic
If p is a pointer to some element of an array, then p++ increments p to point to the next element,
and p+=i increments it to point ielements beyond where it currently does. These and similar
constructions are the simples forms of pointer or address arithmetic. All types of arithmetic
operations are not possible with pointers. The valid operations that can be performed using
pointers are
(i) Addition of an integer to a pointer and increment operation.
(ii) Subtraction of an integer from a ponter and decrement operation.

(iii) Subtraction of a pointer from another pointer of same type.

The arithmetic operations that cannot be performed on pointers are as follows

(i) Addition, multiplication and division of two pointers.

(ii)Multiplication between pointer and any number.
(iii)Division of a pointer by any number.
(iv) Addition of float or double values to pointers.

The expression p+1 yields the correct machine address for the next variable of that type. Other
valid pointer expressions:

p+i, ++p, p+=I, p-q

where p-q represents the No of array elements between p and q.

Since a pointer is just a mem address, we can add to it to traverse an array. p+1
returns a ptr to the next array element.
Precedence level of * operator and increment/decrement operators is same and their associativity
is from right to left. In reality, p+1 doesn’t add 1 to the memory address, it adds the size of the
array element.
Suppose p is an integer pointer and x is an integer variable. Now the main problem is to identify
how the following pointer expressions given below are interpreted.
(i) x = *p++ is same as two expressions x = *p followed by p = p + 1.
(ii) x = (*p)++ is same as two expressions x = *p followed by *p = *p + 1.
(iii) x=*++p is same as two expressions p=p+1 followed by x=*p.
(iv) x=++*p is same as two expressions *p=*p+1 followed by x=*p

C is consistent and regular in its approach to address arithmetic; its integration of pointers, arrays,
and address arithmetic is one of the strengths of the language. Let us illustrate by writing a
rudimentary storage allocator. There are two routines. The first, alloc(n) , returns a pointer to n
consecutive character positions, which can be used by the caller of alloc for storing characters.
The second, afree(p) , releases the storage thus acquired so it can be reused later. The routines
are ``rudimentary'' because the calls to afree must be made in the opposite order to the calls made
on alloc . That is, the storage managed by alloc and afree is a stack, or last-in, first-out. The
standard library provides analogous functions called malloc and free that have no such
restrictions.
The easiest implementation is to have alloc hand out pieces of a large character array that we will
call allocbuf . This array is private to alloc and afree . Since they deal in pointers, not array
indices, no containing
source file other routineand
need know
thus be the
and name
invisible of the array,
, outside which
it. In can be declared static in the
practical
implementations, the array alloc afree
may well not even have a name; it might instead be obtained by
calling malloc or by asking the operating system for a pointer to some unnamed block of storage.
The other information needed is how much of allocbuf has been used. We use a pointer, called
allocp , that points to the next free element. When is asked for n characters, it checks to
alloc
see if there is enough room left in allocbuf . If so, alloc returns the current value of allocp (i.e.,
the beginning of the free block), then increments it by n to point to the next free area. If there is
no room, alloc returns zero. afree(p) merely sets allocp to pif p is inside allocbuf .

#define ALLOCSIZE 10000 static

char allocbuf[ALLOCSIZE];
static char *allocp =
allocbuf; char *alloc(int n)
{
if (allocbuf + ALLOCSIZE - allocp>= n)
{ allocp += n;
return allocp - n;
} else
return 0;
}
void afree(char *p)
{
if (p >= allocbuf&& p <allocbuf + ALLOCSIZE) allocp = p;
}

In general a pointer can be initialized just as any other variable can, though normally the only
meaningful values are zero or an expression involving the address of previously defined data of
appropriate type. The declaration

static char *allocp = allocbuf;

defines allocp to be a character pointer and initializes it to point to the beginning of allocbuf ,
which is the next free position when the program starts. This could also have been written

static char *allocp = &allocbuf[0];

since the array name is the address of the zeroth element. The test
if (allocbuf + ALLOCSIZE - allocp>= n)

checks if there's enough room to satisfy a request for n characters. If there is, the new value of
allocp would be at most one beyond the end of . If the request can be satisfied,
allocbuf
alloc returns a pointer to the beginning of a block of characters (notice the declaration of the
function itself). If not, alloc must return some signal that there is no space left. C guarantees that
zero is never a valid address for data, so a return value of zero can be used to signal an abnormal
event, in this case no space.
Pointers and integers are not interchangeable. Zero is the sole exception: the constant zero may be
assigned to a pointer, and a pointer may be compared with the constant zero. The symbolic
constant NULL is often used in place of zero, as a mnemonic to indicate more clearly that this is a
special value for a pointer. NULL is defined in <stdio.h> . We will use NULL henceforth. Tests
like

if (allocbuf + ALLOCSIZE - allocp>= n) and if

(p >= allocbuf&& p <allocbuf + ALLOCSIZE)

show several important facets of pointer arithmetic. First, pointers may be compared under certain
circumstances. If p and q point to members of the same array, then relations like ==, !=,

<, , etc., work properly. For example,

>=
p < q

is true if p points to an earlier element of the array than q does. Any pointer can be meaningfully
compared for equality or inequality with zero. But the behavior is undefined for arithmetic or
comparisons with pointers that do not point to members of the same array. (There is one
exception: the address of the first element past the end of an array can be used in pointer
arithmetic.) Second, we have already observed that a pointer and an integer may be added or
subtracted. The construction

p + n

means the address of the n-th object beyond the one p currently points to. This is true regardless
of the kind of object p points to; n is scaled according to the size of the objects p points to,
which is determined by the declaration of p. If an int is four bytes, for example, the int will be
scaled by four.
Pointer subtraction is also valid: if p and q point to elements of the same array, and p<q , then q-
p+1
is the number of elements from p to q inclusive. This fact can be used to write yet another
version of strlen :

int strlen(char *s)

{
char *p = s;
while (*p !=
'\0') p++;
 return p - s;
}

In its declaration, p is initialized to s, that is, to point to the first character of the string. In the
while loop, each character in turn is examined until the '\0' at the end is seen. Because p
points to characters, p++ advances p to the next character each time, and p-s gives the number
of characters advanced over, that is, the string length. (The number of characters in the string
could be too large to store in an int . The header <stddef.h> defines a type ptrdiff_t that is
large enough to hold the signed difference of two pointer values. If we were being cautious,
however, we would use size_t for the return value of strlen , to match the standard library
version. size_t is the unsigned integer type returned by the sizeof operator.
Pointer arithmetic is consistent: if we had been dealing with float s, which occupy more storage
that char s, and if p were a pointer to float , p++ would advance to the next float . Thus we
char to throughout alloc and afree . All the pointer manipulations automatically take
float
could write
into account another version
the size of theof objectsthat maintains float
alloc pointed to.The
s instead
valid pointerofoperations
char
s, merely by changingof
are assignment
pointers of the same type, adding or subtracting a pointer and an integer, subtracting or comparing
two pointers to members of the same array, and assigning or comparing to zero. All other pointer
arithmetic is illegal. It is not legal to add two pointers, or to multiply or divide or shift or mask
them, or to add float or double to them, or even, except for void * , to assign a pointer of one
type to a pointer of another type without a cast.
 LECTUER NOTE 30

CHARACTER POINTERS AND FUNCTIONS

A string constant, written as
"I am a string"
is an array of characters. In the internal representation, the array is terminated with the null
character '\0' so that programs can find the end. The length in storage is thus one more than the
number of characters between the double quotes.
Perhaps the most common occurrence of string constants is as arguments to functions, as in
printf("hello, world\n");
When a character string like this appears in a program, access to it is through a character pointer;
printf receives a pointer to the beginning of the character array. That is, a string constant is
accessed by a pointer to its first element. String constants need not be function arguments. If
pmessage is declared as

char *pmessage;

then the statement

pmessage = "now is the time";

assigns to pmessage a pointer to the character array. This is not a string copy; only pointers are
involved. C does not provide any operators for processing an entire string of characters as a unit.
There is an important difference between these definitions:

char amessage[] = "now is the

time"; char *pmessage = "now is
the time";

amessage is an array, just big enough to hold the sequence of characters and '\0' that initializes
it. Individual characters within the array may be changed but amessage will always refer to the

same storage. On the other hand, pmessage is a pointer, initialized to point to a string constant; the
pointer may subsequently be modified to point elsewhere, but the result is undefined if you try to
modify the string contents.
We will illustrate more aspects of pointers and arrays by studying versions of two useful
functions adapted from the standard library. The first function is strcpy(s,t) , which copies the
string t to the string s. It would be nice just to say s=t but this copies the pointer, not the
characters. To copy the characters, we need a loop. The array version first:

void strcpy(char *s, char *t)

{
inti;
i = 0;
while ((s[i] = t[i]) !=
'\0') i++;
 }

For contrast, here is a version of strcpy with pointers:

void strcpy(char *s, char *t)

{
inti;
i = 0;
while ((*s = *t) != '\0')
{ s++; t++; }
}

Because arguments are passed by value, strcpy can use the parameters s and t in any way it
pleases. Here they are conveniently initialized pointers, which are marched along the arrays a
character at a time, until the '\0' that terminates t has been copied into s. In practice,
strcpy would not be written as we showed it above. Experienced C programmers would prefer

void strcpy(char *s, char *t)

{
while ((*s++ = *t++) != '\0')
;
}

This moves the increment of s and t into the test part of the loop. The value of *t++ is the
character that t pointed to before twas incremented; the postfix ++ doesn't change t until after
this character has been fetched. In the same way, the character is stored into the old s position
before s is incremented. This character is also the value that is compared against '\0' to control
the loop. The net effect is that characters are copied from t to s, up and including the terminating
.
'\0'
As the final abbreviation, observe that a comparison against '\0' is redundant, since the question
is merely whether the expression is zero. So the function would likely be written as

void strcpy(char *s, char *t)

{
while (*s++ = *t++)
;
}
Although this may seem cryptic at first sight, the notational convenience is considerable, and the
idiom should be mastered, because you will see it frequently in C programs. The strcpy in the
standard library (<string.h> ) returns the target string as its function value. The second routine
that we will examine is strcmp(s,t) , which compares the character strings s and t, and returns
negative, zero or positive if s is lexicographically less than, equal to, or greater than t. The value
is obtained by subtracting the characters at the first position where s and t disagree.

int strcmp(char *s, char *t)

{

inti;

for (i = 0; s[i] == t[i]; i++)

if (s[i] ==

'\0') return

0;

return s[i] - t[i];

The pointer version of strcmp:

int strcmp(char *s, char *t)

{
for ( ; *s == *t; s++,

t++) if (*s == '\0')

return 0;

return *s -

*t;

Since ++ and -- are either prefix or postfix operators, other combinations of * and ++ and --
occur, although less frequently. For example,

*--p

decrements p before fetching the character that p points to. In fact, the pair of expressions
*p++ = val;

val = *--p;

are the standard idiom for pushing and popping a stack;The header <string.h> contains
declarations for the functions mentioned in this section, plus a variety of other string-handling
functions from the standard library.
Pointer Arrays; Pointers to Pointers
Syntax to declare pointer to an array is

datatype (*pointer_variable)[size];

For example

int (*ptr)[10]; ,Here ptr is a pointer that can point to an array of 10 integers, where we can
initialize ptr with the base address of the array then by incre menting the value of ptr we can
access different elements of array a[].
Since pointers are variables themselves, they can be stored in arrays just as other variables can.
Let us illustrate by writing a program that will sort a set of text lines into alphabetic order, a
stripped-down version of the UNIX program sort.

We need a data representation that will cope efficiently and conveniently with variable-length text
lines. This is where the array of pointers enters. If the lines to be sorted are stored end-to-end in
one long character array, then each line can be accessed by a pointer to its first character.
The pointers themselves can bee stored in an array. Two lines can be compared by passing their
pointers to strcmp . When two out-of-order lines have to be exchanged, the pointers in the pointer
array are exchanged, not the text lines themselves.

This eliminates the twin problems of complicated storage management and high overhead that
would go with moving the lines themselves.

The sorting process has three steps:

read all the lines of input
sort them
print them in order

As usual, it's best to divide the program into functions that match this natural division, with the
main routine controlling the other functions. Let us defer the sorting step for a moment, and
concentrate on the data structure and the input and output. The input routine has to collect and
save the characters of each line, and build an array of pointers to the lines. It will also have to
count the number of input lines, since that information is needed for sorting and printing. Since
the input function can only cope with a finite number of input lines, it can return some illegal
count like -1 if too much input is presented. The output routine only has to print the lines in the
order in which they appear in the array of pointers.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#define MAXLINES 5000
char
*lineptr[MAXLINES];

intreadlines(char *lineptr[], intnlines);

void writelines(char *lineptr[], intnlines);
void qsort(char *lineptr[], int left, int
right); main()

{
intnlines;
if ((nlines = readlines(lineptr,
>= 0) {
MAXLINES)) qsort(lineptr, 0, nlines-1);
writelines(lineptr, nlines); return 0;

} else {
printf("error: input too big to

sort\n"); return 1;

}
}
#define MAXLEN 1000
intgetline(char *,
int); char
*alloc(int);

intreadlines(char *lineptr[], intmaxlines)

{
intlen, nlines;
char *p,

line[MAXLEN]; nlines
if (nlines>= maxlines || p = alloc(len) ==
= 0;
NULL) return -1;

while{((len = getline(line, MAXLEN)) > 0)

else
line[len-1] = '\0'; /* delete newline

*/ strcpy(p, line);

lineptr[nlines++] = p;
}
return nlines;
}
void writelines(char *lineptr[], intnlines)
{
inti;
for (i = 0; i<nlines;
i++) printf("%s\n",
lineptr[i]);

}
The main new thing is the declaration for lineptr :

char *lineptr[MAXLINES]

says that lineptr is an array of MAXLINES elements, each element of which is a pointer to a char .
That is, lineptr[i] is a character pointer, and *lineptr[i] is the character it points to, the
first character of the i-th saved text line.
Since lineptr is itself the name of an array, it can be treated as a pointer in the same manner as
in our earlier examples, and writelines can be written instead as

void writelines(char *lineptr[], intnlines)

{
while (nlines-- > 0)
printf("%s\n",
*lineptr++);
}

Initially, *lineptr points to the first line; each element advances it to the next line pointer while

nlines
is counted down.
With input and output under control, we can proceed to sorting.

void qsort(char *v[], int left, int right)

{
inti, last;
void swap(char *v[], inti, int j);
if (left >= right) /* do nothing if array contains
*/ return; /* fewer than two elements */
swap(v, left, (left +
right)/2); last = left;
for (i = left+1; i<= right;
i++) if (strcmp(v[i], v[left])
< 0) swap(v, ++last, i);
swap(v, left, last);
qsort(v, left, last-1);
qsort(v, last+1,
right);

Similarly, the swap routine needs only trivial changes:

void swap(char *v[], inti, int j)

{
char *temp;
temp =
v[i];
v[i] = v[j];
v[j] = temp;
}
Since any individual element of v (alias lineptr ) is a character pointer, temp must be also, so
one can be copied to the other.

Multi-dimensional Arrays
C provides rectangular multi-dimensional arrays, although in practice they are much less used
than arrays of pointers. In this section, we will show some of their properties.
Consider the problem of date conversion, from day of the month to day of the year and vice versa.
For example, March 1 is the 60th day of a non-leap year, and the 61st day of a leap year.
Let us define two functions to do the conversions: day_of_year converts the month and day into
the day of the year, and month_day converts the day of the year into the month and day. Since this
latter function computes two values, the month and day arguments will be pointers:

month_day(1988, 60, &m, &d)

sets m to 2 and d to 29 (February 29th).

These functions both need the same information, a table of the number of days in each month
(``thirty days hath September ...''). Since the number of days per month differs for leap years
and non-leap years, it's easier to separate them into two rows of a two-dimensional array than to
keep track of what happens to February during computation. The array and the functions for
performing the transformations are as follows:

static char daytab[2][13] = {

{0, 31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31},
{0, 31, 29, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31}
};
intday_of_year(int year, int month, int day)
{
inti, leap;
leap = year%4 == 0 && year%100 != 0 || year%400 ==
0; for (i = 1; i< month; i++)
day +=
daytab[leap][i];
return day;
}
void month_day(int year, intyearday, int *pmonth, int *pday)
{

inti, leap;

leap = year%4 == 0 && year%100 != 0 || year%400 ==

0; for (i = 1; yearday>daytab[leap][i]; i++)
yearday -= daytab[leap][i];
*pmonth = i;
*pday = yearday;
}
Recall that the arithmetic value of a logical expression, such as the one for leap , is either zero
(false) or one (true), so it can be used as a subscript of the array daytab .
The array daytab has to be external to both day_of_year and month_day , so they can both use it.
We made it char to illustrate a legitimate use of char for storing small non-character integers.
daytab is the first two-dimensional array we have dealt with. In C, a two-dimensional array is
really a one-dimensional array, each of whose elements is an array. Hence subscripts are written
as
daytab[i][j] rather than daytab[i,j]

Other than this notational distinction, a two-dimensional array can be treated in much the same
way as in other languages. Elements are stored by rows, so the rightmost subscript, or column,
varies fastest as elements are accessed in storage order.
An array is initialized by a list of initializers in braces; each row of a two-dimensional array is
initialized by a corresponding sub-list. We started the array daytab with a column of zero so that
month numbers can run from the natural 1 to 12 instead of 0 to 11. Since space is not at a
premium here, this is clearer than adjusting the indices.
If a two-dimensional array is to be passed to a function, the parameter declaration in the
function must include the number of columns; the number of rows is irrelevant, since what is
passed is, as before, a pointer to an array of rows, where each row is an array of 13 int s. In this
particular case, it is a pointer to objects that are arrays of 13 int s. Thus if the array daytab is to
be passed to a function f, the declaration of f would be: f(intdaytab[2][13]) { ... }
It could also be
f(intdaytab[][13]) { ... }
since the number of rows is irrelevant, or it could be
f(int (*daytab)[13]) { ... }
which says that the parameter is a pointer to an array of 13 integers. The parentheses are
necessary since brackets [] have higher precedence than *. Without parentheses, the declaration
int *daytab[13]

is an array of 13 pointers to integers. More generally, only the first dimension (subscript) of an
array is free; all the others have to be specified.

Initialization of Pointer Arrays

Consider the problem of writing a function month_name(n) , which returns a pointer to a character
string containing the name of the n-th month. This is an ideal application for an internal static

array. month_name contains a private array of character strings, and returns a pointer to the proper
one when called. This section shows how that array of names is initialized. The syntax is similar
to previous initializations:

char *month_name(int n)
{
static char *name[] = {
"Illegal month",
"January", "February", "March",
"April", "May", "June",
"July", "August", "September",
"October", "November",
"December"
};
return (n < 1 || n > 12) ? name[0] : name[n];
}
The declaration of name , which is an array of character pointers, is the same as lineptr in the
sorting example. The initializer is a list of character strings; each is assigned to the corresponding
position in the array. The characters of the i-th string are placed somewhere, and a pointer to
them is stored in name[i] . Since the size of the array name is not specified, the compiler counts
the initializers and fills in the correct number.

Pointers vs. Multi-dimensional Arrays

Newcomers to C are sometimes confused about the difference between a two-dimensional array
and an array of pointers, such as name in the example above. Given the definitions
int
a[10][20];
int *b[10];
then a[3][4] and b[3][4] are both syntactically legal references to a single int . But a is a true
two-dimensional array: 200 int -sized locations have been set aside, and the conventional
rectangular subscript calculation 20 * row +col is used to find the element a[row,col] . For b,
however, the definition only allocates 10 pointers and does not initialize them; initialization must
be done explicitly, either statically or with code. Assuming that each element of b does point to a
twenty-element array, then there will be 200 int s set aside, plus ten cells for the pointers. The
important advantage of the pointer array is that the rows of the array may be of different lengths.
That is, each element of b need not point to a twenty-element vector; some may point to two
elements, some to fifty, and some to none at all. Although we have phrased this discussion in
terms of integers, by far the most frequent use of arrays of pointers is to store character strings of
diverse lengths, as in the function month_name . Compare the declaration and picture for an array
of pointers:

char *name[] = { "Illegal month", "Jan", "Feb", "Mar"

}; with those for a two-dimensional array:

char aname[][15] = { "Illegal month", "Jan", "Feb", "Mar" };

Array of Pointers

We can declare an array that contains pointers as its elements. Syntax to declare array of pointer:

datatype *arrayname[size];

For example to declare an array of size 20 that contains integer pointers we can write

int *a[10];

where we can initialize each element of a[] with addresses of variables.

Functions returning Pointer

We can have a function that returns a pointer. Syntax to declare such type of function is

type *function_name(type1,type2,……);
For Example:
void main()
{
int *p;
p=fun();

}
int *fun()
{
int a=5;
int *q=&a;
return
q;
}

Pointers to Functions
How to declare a pointer to a function?

Syntax: returntype_of_function (*pointer variable)(List of

arguments); For example:
int (*p)(int,int); can be interpreted as p is a pointer to function which takes two integers as
argument and returntype is integer.
How to make a pointer to a function?

Syntax:
pointer_variable=function_name_without_parantheses;
For Example:
p=test;
can be read as p is a pointer to function test.

How to call a function using pointer?

Syntax:
pointer_variable(ist of arguments);
OR
(*pointer_variable)(List of arguments);

The following program illustrates pointer to function

int getc()
{
return 10;
}
void put(int a)
{
printf(“%d”,a);
}
void main()
{ /*You can write void *p();*/
int k; /*You can write void *q(int);*/
p=get; q=put; k=p(); q(k);
int (*p)();
}void (*q)(int);

NOTE:
(i) In C every function is stored into physical memory location and entry point of that
function address is stored into function name. If you assign a pointer to to the function
then the base address of the function is copied into the pointer. Using this control is
shifting from calling function to called function.
(ii) By default all functions are global, we can access from wherever we want. So there is no
such significance to make a pointer to function.

In C, a function itself is not a variable, but it is possible to define pointers to functions, which can
be assigned, placed in arrays, passed to functions, returned by functions, and so on. We will
illustrate this by modifying the sorting procedure written earlier in this chapter so that if the
optional argument -nis given, it will sort the input lines numerically instead of
lexicographically.
A sort often consists of three parts - a comparison that determines the ordering of any pair of
objects, an exchange that reverses their order, and a sorting algorithm that makes comparisons
and exchanges until the objects are in order. The sorting algorithm is independent of the
comparison and exchange operations, so by passing different comparison and exchange functions
to it, we can arrange to sort by different criteria. This is the approach taken in our new sort.
Lexicographic comparison of two lines is done by strcmp , as before; we will also need a routine
numcmp that compares two lines on the basis of numeric value and returns the same kind of
condition indication as strcmp does. These functions are declared ahead of main and a pointer to
the appropriate one is passed to qsort . We have skimped on error processing for arguments, so as
to concentrate on the main issues.

#include <stdio.h>
#include
<string.h>
#define MAXLINES 5000 /* max #lines to be sorted */
char *lineptr[MAXLINES]; /* pointers to text lines

*/ int readlines(char *lineptr[], intnlines);

void writelines(char *lineptr[], intnlines);

void qsort(void *lineptr[], int left, int right, int (*comp)(void *, void
*)); int numcmp(char *, char *);
/* sort input lines */
main(intargc, char *argv[])
{
intnlines; /* number of input lines read
*/ int numeric = 0; /* 1 if numeric sort
*/
if (argc> 1 &&strcmp(argv[1], "-n") ==
0) numeric = 1;
if ((nlines = readlines(lineptr, MAXLINES)) >= 0)
{
qsort((void**) lineptr, 0, nlines-1,
(int (*)(void*,void*))(numeric ? numcmp :
strcmp)); writelines(lineptr, nlines);
return 0;
}
else
{
printf("input too big to
sort\n"); return 1;
}
}

In the call to qsort , strcmp and numcmp are addresses of functions. Since they are known to be
functions, the & is not necessary, in the same way that it is not needed before an array name. We
have written qsort so it can process any data type, not just character strings. As indicated by the
function prototype, qsort expects an array of pointers, two integers, and a function with two
pointer arguments. The generic pointer type void is
* used for the pointer arguments. Any
pointer can be cast to void * and back again without loss of information, so we can call qsort by
casting arguments to void * . The elaborate cast of the function argument casts the arguments of
the comparison function. These will generally have no effect on actual representation, but assure
the compiler that all is well.

void qsort(void *v[], int left, int

right, int (*comp)(void *, void *))
{
inti, last;
void swap(void *v[], int, int);
if (left >= right) /* do nothing if array contains
*/ return; /* fewer than two elements */
swap(v, left, (left +
right)/2); last = left;
for (i = left+1; i<= right;
i++) if ((*comp)(v[i],
v[left]) < 0) swap(v, ++last,
i);
swap(v, left, last);
qsort(v, left, last-1,
comp);
qsort(v, last+1, right, comp);
}

The declarations should be studied with some care. The fourth parameter of qsort is

int (*comp)(void *, void *)

which says that comp is a pointer to a function that has two void * arguments and returns an
int .
The use of comp in the line if
((*comp)(v[i], v[left]) <
0)

is consistent with the declaration: comp is a pointer to a function, *comp is the function, and

(*comp)(v[i], v[left])

is the call to it. The parentheses are needed so the components are correctly associated; without
them,

int *comp(void *, void *)

says that comp is a function returning a pointer to an int , which is very different. We have
already shown strcmp , which compares two strings. Here is numcmp , which compares two strings
on a leading numeric value, computed by calling atof :

#include <stdlib.h>
/* numcmp: compare s1 and s2 numerically
*/ intnumcmp(char *s1, char *s2)
{ double v1,
v2; v1 =
atof(s1); v2 =
atof(s2); if
(v1 < v2)
return -1;
else if (v1 >
v2) return 1;
else
return 0;
}

The swap function, which exchanges two pointers, is as follows

void swap(void *v[], inti, int j;)

{ void
*temp; temp
= v[i];
v[i] = v[j];
v[j] = temp;
}
 LECTURE NOTE 31

DYNAMIC MEMORY ALLOCATION

The memory allocation that we have done till now was static memory allocation.. So the memory
that could be used by the program was fixed. So we couldnot allocate or deallocate memory
during the execution of the program. It is not possible to predict how much memory will be
needed by the program at run time. For example assume we have declared an array with size 20
elements, which is fixed. So if at run time values to be stored in array is less than 20 then
wastage of memory occurs or our program may fail if more than 20 values are to be stored in to
that array. To solve the above problems and allocate memory during runtime we are using
dynamic memory allocation.

The following functions are used in dynamic memory allocation and are defined in <stdlib.h>

1. malloc()
Declaration: void *malloc(size_t size);
This function is used to allocate memory dynamically. The argument size specifies the
number of bytes to be allocated. On success, malloc() returns a pointer to the first byte vof
allocated memory. The returned pointer is of type void, which can be type cast to
appropriate type of pointer. The memory allocated by malloc() contains garbage value
2. calloc()
Declaration: void *calloc(size_t n,size_t size);
This function is used to allocate multiple blocks of memory. The first argument specifies
the number of blocks and the second one specifies the size of each block. The memory
allocated by calloc() is initialized to zero.
3. realloc()
Declaration: void *realloc(void *ptr,size_t newsize);
The function realloc() is used to change the size of the memory block. It alters the size of
the memory block without losing the old data. This function takes two arguments, first is
a pointer to the block of memory that was previously allocated by mallloc() or calloc()
and second one is the new size for that block.
4. free();
Declaration: void free(void *p);
This function is used to release the memory space allocated dynamically. Rhe memory
released by free() is made available to the heap again and can be used for some other
purpose. We should not try to free any memory location that was not allocated by
malloc(), calloc() or realloc().

The following program illustrates Dynamic memory allocation.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>

void main()

{ int *p,n,i;
printf(“Enter the number of integers to be

entered”); scanf(“%d”,&n);

p=(int *)malloc(n*sizeof(int)); /* This is same as “(int *)calloc(n,sizeof(int))”*/

/* If we write “(int *)malloc(sizeof(int))” then only 2 byte of memory will be allocated

dynamically*/

if(p==NULL)

printf(“Memory is not available”);

exit(1);

for(i=0;i<n;i++)

{
printf(“Enter an integer”);

scanf(“%d”,p+i);

for(i=0;i<n;i++)

printf(”%d\t”,*(p+i));

}
 LECTURE NOTE 32

POINTER TO STRUCTURES
You may recall that the name of an array stands for the address of its zero-th element. Also true
for the names of arrays of structure variables.

Consider the declaration:

struct stud {
int roll;
char dept_code[25];
float cgpa;

} class[100], *ptr ;

The name class represents the address of the zero-th element of the structure array. ptr is a
pointer to data objects of the type struct stud. The assignment ptr = class; will assign the
address of class[0] to ptr.
When the pointer ptr is incremented by one (ptr++) :
The value of ptr is actually increased by sizeof(stud).

It is made to point to the next record.

Once ptr points to a structure variable, the members can be accessed as:
ptr –> roll;
ptr –>
dept_code; ptr
–> cgpa;
The symbol “–>” is called the arrow operator.
 LECTURE NOTE 33
FILE
A File is a collection of data stored on a secondary storage device like hard disk. File operation is
to combine all the input data into a file and then to operate through the C program. Various
operations like insertion, deletion, opening closing etc can be done upon a file. When the program
is terminated, the entire data is lost in C programming. If you want to keep large volume of data,
it is time consuming to enter the entire data. But, if file is created these information can be
accessed using few commands.

There are large numbers of functions to handle file I/O in C language. In this tutorial, you will
learn to handle standard I/O(High level file I/O functions) in C. High level file I/O functions can
be categorized as:

Text file
1.
Binary
2.
file

A file can be open in several modes for these operations. The various modes are:

r open a text file for reading

w truncate to zero length or create a text file for writing

a append; open or create text file for writing at end-of-file
rb open binary file for reading

wb truncate to zero length or create a binary file for writing

ab append; open or create binary file for writing at end-of-file
r+ open text file for update (reading and writing)
w+ truncate to zero length or create a text file for update
a+ append; open or create text file for update
r+b or rb+ open binary file for update (reading and writing)
w+b or wb+ truncate to zero length or create a binary file for update
a+b or ab+ append; open or create binary file for update

fopen and freopen opens the file whose name is in the string pointed to by filename and associates
a stream with it. Both return a pointer to the object controlling the stream, or if the open operation
fails a null pointer. The error and end-of-file(EOF) indicators are cleared, and if the open
operation fails error is set. freopen differs from fopen in that the file pointed to by stream is
closed first when already open and any close errors are ignored.

Q1. Write a program to open a file using fopen().

Ans:
#include<stdio.h> void
main()

{
fopen()
file *fp;

fp=fopen(“student.DAT”, “r”);

if(fp==NULL)

printf(“The file could not be open”);

exit(0);

Q2. Write a C program to read name and marks of n number of students from user and store them
in a file. If the file previously exits, add the information of n students.

Ans:
#include

<stdio.h> int

main()

{
char name[50];
int marks, i,n;
printf(“Enter number of students”);

scanf(“%d”, &n);

FILE *fptr;
fptr=(fopen(“C:\\student.txt”,”a”));
if (fptr==NULL){
printf("Error!"); exit(1);

for(i=0;i<n;++i)
{ printf("For student%d\nEnter name: ",i+1);
scanf("%s",name);
printf(“Enter marks”);

scanf(“%d”,

&marks);

fprintf(fptr, “\nName: %s\nMarks=%d\n”, name, marks);

}

fclose(fptr);

Return 0;

The fclose function causes the stream pointed to be flushed and the associated file to be closed.
Any unwritten buffered data for the stream are delivered to the host environment to be written to
the file; any unread buffered data are discarded. The stream is disassociated from the file. If the
associated buffer was automatically allocated, it is deallocated. The function returns zero if the
stream was successfully closed or EOF if any errors were detected.

Q.3. Write a program to read data from file and close using fclose function.

Ans:
#include

<stdio.h> int

main()

int n
FILE *fptr;
if ((fptr=fopen("C:\\program.txt","r"))==NULL){

printf("Error! opening file");

exit(1); // Program exits if file pointer returns NULL.

}
fscanf(fptr,"%d",&n);

printf("Value of n=%d",n);

fclose(fptr);

return 0;

Q4. Write a C program to write all the members of an array of strcures to a file using fwrite().
Read the array from the file and display on the screen.
Ans:
#include<stdio.h>
Struct s

{
Char name[50];
Int height;

};
Int main()
{
Struct s a[5], b[5];

FILE *fptr;

Int I;
Fptr=fopen(“file.txt”, “wb”);
For(i=0; i<5; ++i)

{
fflush(stdin);
printf("Enter name: ") ;
gets(a[i].name);
printf("Enter height: ");
scanf("%d",&a[i].height);

}
fwrite(a,sizeof(a),1,fptr);
fclose(fptr);
fptr=fopen("file.txt","rb");
fread(b,sizeof(b),1,fptr);
for(i=0;i<5;++i)

{
printf("Name: %s\nHeight: %d",b[i].name,b[i].height);
} fclose(fptr);

}
 MODULE 4
LECTURE NOTE – 34
ALGORITHM AND DATA STRUCTURE
Algorithm

➢ An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure of solving a problem.

➢ It is defined as any well-defined computational procedure that takes some value as input,
produces some value known as output within a finite amount of time.
➢ Different algorithms can be devised to solve a single problem.

Real world applications of algorithms

➢ The Human Genome project

➢ The Internet
➢ E-commerce

Data Structure

➢ A data structure is a way to store and organize data in order to facilitate access and
modifications.
➢ For example, an array stores similar types of data sequentially while a structure stores data
of different types. These two are basic data structures and are used to formulate other data
structures.
➢ For example, we can create a structure to store the information of a student. An array of
such a structure will store the details of several students. So this array of structure will
represent another data structure.
➢ Other well-known data structures include stack, queue, linked list, trees etc.
➢ No single data structure works well for all purposes, so it is important to understand
multiple data structures.

Difference between algorithm and data structure

➢ An algorithm is a way to solve a problem where as a data structure is a way to store

similar or heterogeneous data.
➢ Every algorithm must work on some specific data structure (be it an array or a tree or a
list).
➢ In simpler terms, the way we store data is data structure and the way we access and
modify that data is the algorithm.
Properties of Algorithm
An algorithm must have the following properties.

➢ Input: An algorithm must take some (possibly one) input value.

➢ Output: An algorithm must produce some definite outputs.
➢ Finiteness: An algorithm must terminate after a finite number of steps.
➢ Definiteness: An algorithm should be definite, i.e. it shouldn’t contain any ambiguity at
any step.
➢ Effectiveness: One must be able to perform the steps in algorithm without applying any
intelligence.

Types of algorithm

Algorithms generally fall under two categories:

➢ Iterative: These algorithms sequentially execute the input using loops and conditional
statements. E.g. Linear search
➢ Recursive: These algorithms recursively break a larger problem into some smaller
problems and solve those problems. Then they combine the result of smaller problems to
solve the main given problem.
 LECTURE NOTE – 35
ANALYSIS OF ALGORITHMS
As mentioned before, different algorithms can be devised to solve a single problem. The
most efficient algorithm is always desired. This efficiency can be in terms of space required or
time required to solve the problem.

Analysis of algorithm is a technique to compare the relative efficiency of different

algorithms. Since speed of an algorithm can be different on different computers (depending on
computer speed), time required to solve the problem cannot be expressed without ambiguity in
terms of number of seconds required to solve a problem. Instead, it is measured by number of
calculations required to solve the problem.

In real life situations, the actual number of operations is not used. Rather, the time
required is expressed as a mathematical function of the input size. Two algorithms are compared
on the basis of rate of growth of that function. Higher rate of growth means the algorithm will
take more time as the input size increases.

Representation of analysis
The mathematical function is generally represented using big-O notation. Big-O notation
gives an asymptotic upper bound of the function.
Let the function be a polynomial function
F(n)=an^k+bn^(k-1)+…+z
where n is the variable, a,b,…,z are co-efficient.
The growth of the function is high. It is higher than any polynomial equation of power less than k.
But it is lower than any polynomial of power greater than k.
So
F(n) < n^(k+1) and so on.
Moreover, we can always find a constant α such that
F(n) <= α n^k
So, n^k, n^(k+1) and so on represent an upper bound to the function. It is in symbolic natation
represented as
F(n)= O (n^k)
F(n)= O (n^(k+1)) and so on

Definition of Big-O
For two functions F(n) and G(n), if there exists a positive constant c, such that
0 <= F(n) <= c G(n), for some n>=n0
Then F(n)=O(G(n))

Other representations
➢ Big-Ω :
o This gives an asymptotic lower bound of a function.
 o Informally, it is the minimum time an algorithm will take to solve a problem.
o For two functions F(n) and G(n), if there exists a positive constant c, such that
0 <= c G(n) <= F(n), for some n>=n0
Then F(n)= Ω (G(n))
➢ Big-Θ:
o For two functions F(n) and G(n), if there exists two positive constant c1 and c2,
such that
0 <= c1 G(n) <= F(n) <=c2 G(n) , for some n>=n0
Then F(n)= Θ (G(n))

Comparison of speed of two algorithms (an example)

Let there be two computers, A and B. Let A can execute 10^10 instructions per second
while B can execute 10^7 instructions per second. Let there be two algorithms to solve a given
problem, one of time complexity 2n^2 and another 50nlogn. Let the first algorithm be run
on faster computer A and the other one in computer B.
When input size n=10^7,
Time required by computer A = 2 x (10^7)^2 / 10^10
= 20000 seconds (about 5.5 hours)
Time required by computer B = 50 x (10^7) x log(10^7) /
10^10
= 1163 seconds (less than 20 minutes)
Even though first computer was about 1000 times faster than second computer, it took a lot more
time to execute an algorithm of higher complexity.

Cases considered in analysis

➢ Best case :
o This is the analysis when the input is in favour of output.
o For example, in sorting problem, the analysis done when the list is already sorted
is called best case analysis.
o This is not of much interest.
➢ Worst case :
o Worst case analysis is the longest running time of an algorithm for a particular size
of input.
o For sorting problem, the worst case is when the number are already sorted but in
reverse order.
o This gives an upper bound of an algorithm.
➢ Average case :
o It is the general case (not best not worst).
o But in practice, it is as bad as the worst case.
o It occurs fairly often (as often as worst case).
o In sorting example, sorting any random list falls under this category.
An example of finding time complexity
Consider the following code snippet for sorting an array.
for(i=0;i<n;i++)
for(j=i+1;j<n;j++)
if(arr[i]>arr[j])
swap(arr[i],arr[j]);

Here the first element is compared with remaining n-1 elements, second element with
remaining n-2 elements and so on.
So total number of comparisons is
(n-1) + (n-2) + … + 1 = n(n-1)/2
This is a polynomial equation of power 2. So the algorithm is said to be O(n^2).
 LECTURE NOTE – 36
STORAGE STRUCTURE OF ARRAYS
➢ Arrays are linear data structure that store homogenous elements in contiguous memory
locations.
➢ Every memory location has an address. The address is basically an integer.
➢ If more than one memory locations are required to store a value of a given data type (say x
number of locations), then each element of the array will be stored at x locations apart
from its predecessor and its successor.
➢ Consider an array of five characters where each character takes one byte storage (Which
is a single memory location size in most architectures).

Here, ‘A’,’R’,’R’,’A’,’Y’,’S’ are the elements and the number under each is the memory
location. Since each character takes a single byte, each elements are stored one element apart.

➢ Consider another array of five integers where each element takes four bytes storage.

Here, each element is four bytes (hence four memory locations) apart.
➢ In order to find the address of each elements, we can use the following code snippet –

int arr[n],i; //n is the size of

array for(i=0;i<n;i++)
printf(“%d\t”,&arr[i]);

2D array

➢ A 2-dimensional array is a collection of homogenous elements arranged in m rows and n

columns.
➢ Since the actual memory is sequential, the array elements are stored sequentially in
memory as shown in the figure below.
 int arr[4][4]={
{56, 85, 82, 66},
{20, 56, 125, 785},
{96, 75, 21, 5},
{785, 45, 223, 451},
};

➢ Since it is an integer array, each element took four bytes of storage. So the memory
location of each is separated by four units as well.
➢ The above method of storing is called row-major order. Here, the values are stored row
wise i.e. all elements of zeroth row are stored first, followed by that of first row and so on.
➢ The address of (i,j)th cell can be found by
Base address + (i*n) + j //m X n matrix
➢ Similarly in column major order, elements are stored column wise.
➢ C programming language uses row-major order.
Multi-dimensional array

➢ A multi-dimensional array has more than two dimensions.

➢ Consider a three by m by n array. It is basically a collection of three two dimensional
array.
➢ Hence, to store it, the first two dimensional array is stored as mentioned before, followed
by second 2D array followed by 3rd 2D array.
 File handling
File is a collection of records related to each other. The file size is limited by the size of
memory and storage medium.

There are two important features of file:

1. File Activity
2. File Volatility

File activity specifies percent of actual records which proceed in a single run.

File volatility addresses the properties of record changes. It helps to increase the efficiency
of disk design than tape.

File Organization

File organization ensures that records are available for processing. It is used to determine an
efficient file organization for each base relation.

For example, if we want to retrieve employee records in alphabetical order of name. Sorting
the file by employee name is a good file organization. However, if we want to retrieve all
employees whose marks are in a certain range, a file is ordered by employee name would not
be a good file organization.

Types of File Organization

There are three types of organizing the file:

1. Sequential access file organization

2. Direct access file organization
3. Indexed sequential access file organization

1. Sequential access file organization

∙ Storing and sorting in contiguous block within files on tape or disk is called as sequential

access file organization.

∙ In sequential access file organization, all records are stored in a sequential order. The
records are arranged in the ascending or descending order of a key field.
∙ Sequential file search starts from the beginning of the file and the records can be added at
the end of the file.
∙ In sequential file, it is not possible to add a record in the middle of the file without rewriting
the file.

Advantages of sequential file

∙ It is simple to program and easy to design.
∙ Sequential file is best use if storage space.
Disadvantages of sequential file
∙ Sequential file is time consuming process.
∙ It has high data redundancy.
∙ Random searching is not possible.

2. Direct access file organization

∙ Direct access file is also known as random access or relative file organization.
∙ In direct access file, all records are stored in direct access storage device (DASD), such as
hard disk. The records are randomly placed throughout the file.
∙ The records does not need to be in sequence because they are updated directly and rewritten
back in the same location.
∙ This file organization is useful for immediate access to large amount of information. It is
used in accessing large databases.

∙ It is also called as hashing.

Advantages of direct access file organization
∙ Direct access file helps in online transaction processing system (OLTP) like online railway

reservation system.

∙ In direct access file, sorting of the records are not required.

∙ It accesses the desired records immediately.
∙ It updates several files quickly.
∙ It has better control over record allocation.
Disadvantages of direct access file organization
∙ Direct access file does not provide backup facility.
∙ It is expensive.
∙ It has less storage space as compared to sequential file.
 3. Indexed sequential access file organization
∙ Indexed sequential access file combines both sequential file and direct access file

organization.
∙ In indexed sequential access file, records are stored randomly on a direct access device such
as magnetic disk by a primary key.
∙ This file has multiple keys. These keys can be alphanumeric in which the records are
ordered is called primary key.
∙ The data can be access either sequentially or randomly using the index. The index is stored
in a file and read into memory when the file is opened.

Advantages of Indexed sequential access file organization

∙ In indexed sequential access file, sequential file and random file access is possible.
∙ It accesses the records very fast if the index table is properly organized.
∙ The records can be inserted in the middle of the file.
∙ It provides quick access for sequential and direct processing.
∙ It reduces the degree of the sequential search.
Disadvantages of Indexed sequential access file organization
∙ Indexed sequential access file requires unique keys and periodic reorganization.
∙ Indexed sequential access file takes longer time to search the index for the data access or
retrieval.

∙ It requires more storage space.

∙ It is expensive because it requires special software.
∙ It is less efficient in the use of storage space as compared to other file organizations.

File handling operations

1. Opening a file- The fopen() function is used to create a new file or to open an existing file.

General Syntax –

*fp = FILE *fopen(const char *filename, const char *mode);

Here, *fp is the FILE pointer (FILE *fp), which will hold the reference to the opened (or
created) file. filename is the name of the file to be opened and mode specifies the purpose
of opening the file.
 2. Closing a file - The fclose() function is used to close an already opened file.

General Syntax - int fclose( FILE *fp);

Here fclose() function closes the file and returns zero on success, or EOF if there is an error
in closing the file. This EOF is a constant defined in the header file stdio.h.

3. Writing in a file – putc(), puts(),fwrite() etc are various function used to write in a
file.

4. Reading a file- getc(),gets(),fread() etc are various functions used to read a file.

File handling functions

File
handling functions Description

fopen () function creates a new file or opens an

fopen () existing file.

fclose () fclose () function closes an opened file.

getw () getw () function reads an integer from file.

putw () putw () functions writes an integer to file.

fgetc () fgetc () function reads a character from file.

fputc () fputc () functions write a character to file.

gets () gets () function reads line from keyboard.

puts () puts () function writes line to o/p screen.

fgets () function reads string from a file, one line at a

fgets () time.

fputs () fputs () function writes string to a file.

feof () feof () function finds end of file.

fgetchar () fgetchar () function reads a character from keyboard.

fprintf () fprintf () function writes formatted data to a file.

fscanf () fscanf () function reads formatted data from a file.

fputchar () function writes a character onto the output

fputchar () screen from keyboard input.

fseek () function moves file pointer position to given

fseek () location.

SEEK_SET moves file pointer position to

SEEK_SET the beginning of the file.

SEEK_CUR moves file pointer position to given

SEEK_CUR location.

SEEK_END moves file pointer position to the end of

SEEK_END file.

ftell () ftell () function gives current position of file pointer.

rewind () function moves file pointer position to the

rewind () beginning of the file.

getc () getc () function reads character from file.

getch () getch () function reads character from keyboard.

getche () function reads character from keyboard and

getche () echoes to o/p screen.

getchar () getchar () function reads character from keyboard.

putc () putc () function writes a character to file.

putchar () putchar () function writes a character to screen.

printf () printf () function writes formatted data to screen.

sprinf () sprinf () function writes formatted output to string.

scanf () scanf () function reads formatted data from keyboard.

sscanf () sscanf () function Reads formatted input from a string.

remove () remove () function deletes a file.

fflush () fflush () function flushes a file.

File opening modes

Pattern Matching in c
In C Programming, Pattern matching is the way of checking a series of pattern or a
sequence of digits or string with some other pattern and find out if it matches or not, in
pattern recognition, the match usually has to be exact.
A pattern can be a series of digits, a string, different types of colours arranged in order. The
order is really important in case of pattern matching.

String Matching Pattern

P[m] = P[0,1……m-1] String
T[n]= T[0,1,…..n-1]

P occurs with shift S in T if 0<=S<=n-m and T[S+0,……S+m-1] =P[0,1……m-1]

If P occurs with shift S in T then we call S is a valid shift otherwise S is an invalid shift

char T[] =”HELLOWORLD”;

char P[]=”HA”;
Naïve Pattern matching algorithm(T,P)
1. n = T length
2. m = P length
3. for S = 0 to n-m
4. if p[0,…..m-1] = T[S+0,……S+m-1]
5. Printf “Pattern occur with shift S”;

C-program
Q. WAP in C to demonstrate fseek(), ftell (), rewind().

#include<stdio.h>

void main()

FILE *fp;
char s[]="helloworld";

int i,pos;

fp=fopen("input.txt","w");

if(fp==NULL)
 {

printf("File does not exist..");

for(i=0;i<strlen(s);i++)

fputc(s[i],fp);

}
fseek(fp,0,SEEK_END);

pos=ftell(fp);

printf("Current postion is %d\n",pos);

rewind(fp);

pos=ftell(fp);
printf("Current postion is %d\n",pos);

fclose(fp);

getch();

Q. WAP in C to reverse the contents of a file and print it.

#include<stdio.h>

int main()

{
FILE *fp;

char ch;

int i,pos;
 fp=fopen("input.txt","r");

if(fp==NULL)

printf("File does not exist..");

}
fseek(fp,0,SEEK_END);

pos=ftell(fp);// pos =10

i=0;

while(i<pos)

i++;

fseek(fp,-i,SEEK_END);

ch=fgetc(fp);

printf("%c",ch);

return 0;

}
Q3. WAP in C to copy the contents of one file to another.
#include <stdio.h>

main()

{
FILE *fp1, *fp2;

char ch;

fp1 = fopen("abc.txt", "r");

fp2 = fopen("xyz.txt", "w");

while((ch = getc(fp1)) != EOF)

putc(ch, fp2);
fclose(fp1);

fclose(fp2);

getch();