If I were well-versed in a handful of programming languages, I’m sure I’d find one better than C for examining line lengths in a text file. Perhaps Perl could do the trick? or even the shell language? Regardless, I know C.
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I admit that sometimes I need to see someone else’s code before a formerly obscure function becomes useful to me. A case in point is the strchr() function, which I rarely use.
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In last week’s Lesson, I demonstrated how macros can save time, effectively replacing one-line functions in your code. One place I’ve used macros in my own code is when performing binary math operations.
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Interesting numbers have a mathematical property that makes them handy in a certain way. For programming, these numbers present useful binary patterns that may be obvious in hexadecimal but meaningless in decimal. For non-programmers and non-mathematicians, interesting numbers offer visual patterns that most likely have no useful application beyond their look.
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In C, a macro is a preprocessor directive that creates a shortcut, often a one-line expression to be inserted elsewhere in the code. Macros can make code more readable, but they can have a negative effect when implemented in a clumsy manner.
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Long ago, I worked with a programmer who had a habit of referring to certain values as “interesting.” What was an interesting number to him? 43,690. Yeah, it seems dull, but in hex it’s 0xAAAA and in binary it’s 1010101010101010. Interesting.
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The setlocale() function, mentioned in last week’s Lesson, both returns the current locale string and sets a new locale. It’s not necessary to call this function to gather locale details already known to your computer. To pluck out this detail, use the localeconv() function.
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A major hurdle in computer science was getting disparate computers to speak with each other. Not verbally, of course, but by exchanging files in compatible file formats. After this task was ironed out, professionals in white lab coats realized the next step was massaging program output to match the user’s language and other local preferences.
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The search path is a list of directories in which the operating system scans for programs. Its purpose is to allow quick access to common programs and system utilities without the necessity of typing a full pathname or changing to the right directory to start an application.
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In the printf() function, the first argument is a format string. It can contain the various percent placeholders to represent values expressed in the remaining arguments. But can one of those arguments also contain placeholders?
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