Seriously, why do programmers need an abs() function? It’s available in just about every programming language; if you view an alphabetic list of functions, abs() is probably the first one. Yet, what’s the point of a function that simply converts negative values to positive values?
Continue reading
For my solution to this month’s Exercise, I crafted the ask() function. That’s because the original code prompts three times with a question string and an answer buffer, which is the repetitive part of the program I chose to cast into a function.
Continue reading
Somewhere in my vast array of teaching material, I claimed that only for loops can be nested. That’s poppycock.
Continue reading
I believe two reasons exist for creating functions. The first is repetition; when you have a chunk of code that duplicates several times, it’s best to shove it off into a function where it can be called repeatedly. The second reason is readability.
Continue reading
I’m not a fan of the scanf() function, despite how handy it can be. It’s a great teaching tool, but for a program that accepts string input, you need to use fgets() instead. Still, scanf() can be used to read a string, providing that you know the whitespace requirements beforehand.
Continue reading
I received a question on a looping variable and why its value after the loop isn’t the same as the ending value of the loop. It’s a puzzling issue I remember from when I first learned to program, but one that you can understand once you figure out what the loop does.
Continue reading
To add more functionality to the C language, you mix in another library. The library contains routines (functions) that let you control specific hardware, manipulate data, work with graphics, and a host of other capabilities beyond the standard C library.
Continue reading
I’ve not installed Code::Blocks on a Linux computer, but for a moment I’ll pretend that such an installation has the same issue I described in last week’s Lesson: You must manually link in the C language math library to create any program that uses a math.h function.
Continue reading
I hope you didn’t find this month’s Exercise too daunting. In fact, it’s pretty basic stuff, but often something you might forget. In fact, the compiler may remind you when you attempt to pass an argument to a function and it’s of the wrong type.
Continue reading
Recently, I had question posed to from a reader from Norway. He was working his way through my book and found that one of the programs wouldn’t compile on his Linux computer. The problem was that the C language math library isn’t automatically linked. The effect is that a linker error appears upon compiling.
Continue reading