As C evolved, so did the definitions for integer sizes short, int, and long. Back when I first coded C, a short was 8-bits, an int was 16-bits, and a long was 32-bits. These values aren’t the same today or even consistent across platforms. This issue is addressed in the C23 standard by using the _BitInt() data type.
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While the C language offers hexadecimal notation and output, it ignores binary. Now with the C 23 standard, binary expression and output is supported.
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The C23 standard is only partially implemented on a few compilers. To ensure that you can build C23 programs, you must obtain the latest compiler version from your distro’s package manager. Even then, not all the C23 capabilities may be available.
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The next C standard is established and it’s slowly being implemented. If you have the latest version of the C compiler installed on your system, you can take advantage of some of the fun and improved features of the C programming language.
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I’m continually amazed when I discover some aspect of the C programming language that I’ve not encountered before. This time, the trick is how to initialize individual array elements.
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Scanning the digital dictionary is fun, but it’s gone on way too long! I was going to end this series with code that solves the Spelling Bee game, but decided to end things with this Lesson. This final post scans the dictionary for words that match a given clutch of characters.
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I introduced the pangram concept in last week’s Lesson. The code demonstrated how to locate 7-letter words where no letter repeats, based on the online game Spelling Bee. But a pangram need not be limited to just seven letters.
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I’m a fan of the online game Spelling Bee. In this game, you use a combination of seven letters to spell various words. Each word is at least four-letters long and must contain a special letter, shown in the center of Figure 1. When you create a word that contains all seven letters, you’ve discovered a pangram.
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Not all the nasty words are four letters long, but a good chunk of them are. If you ran the program from last week’s Lesson, you can quickly check the computer’s dictionary for the words you once couldn’t say on TV, gleefully typing them in and confirming that they exist in the dictionary. But how many four letter words are there?
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At the basic level, a spell-checker works as a simple comparison program: The word in question is compared with each word in the dictionary. When the source word isn’t found, it’s assumed to be misspelled. With a dictionary file on your computer, it’s easy for a C programmer to code this type of program.
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