C language is a general purpose high-level programming language that was originally invented by Dennis M.Ritchie to develop the UNIX operating system at Bell Laboratories.
C programming language was originally first implemented or tested on computer named DEC PDP-11 in 1972.
In 1978, Brian K. and Dennis R. produced the first publicly available description of C programming language and now it is known as the K&R standard.
The UNIX operating system along with the C compiler and essentially all UNIX application programs have been written with C programming language.
C programming language now became an extremely used professional language for the following various reasons
- Easy to learn and understand
- Structured programming language
- It produces efficient and reliable programs
- It can handle low level as well as high level activities
- It can be compiled on variety of computer platforms such as unix, linux, macintosh,windows etc.
Features of C language
- Robust language with a well rich set of built-in functions & operators that can be used to write and execute any complex program.
- The C compiler has the capabilities of combining an assembly language with characteristics and features of a high-level programming language.
- The Programs Written in C are efficient,reliable and fast. Which is due to its variety of data type and extremely powerful operators.
- C is highly portable which means that programs once written with it can run on another machines with little or without modification.
- Another important feature of a C program is that it has ability to extend itself.
- A C program is basically a collection of functions and operators that are supported by C standard library.