Difficulty: ★ ★ ★ ☆
The task for last month’s Exercise was to describe complex data — a matrix. For this month’s Exercise, your task is to multiply these matrixes.
Continue reading
Multiplying Matrixes
Reply
Category Archives: Exercise
Describing Complex Data
Difficulty: ★ ★ ☆ ☆
I’ve written many C programming Lessons and Exercises that deal with matrixes. For most of them, such as rotating a matrix, I rely on uniform matrix sizes, like 5×5 or 10×10. This approach makes coding easier, but it doesn’t properly describe every type of matrix.
Continue reading
The Seventh Line
Difficulty: ★ ★ ☆ ☆
For me, the scariest part of learning how to program a computer was file access. The problem was the horrid documentation. It introduced both sequential and random file access together without much explanation. So it was with much trepidation that I wrote my first file I/O program. That’s when I realized that the manual was stupid.
Continue reading
Clear the Screen
Difficulty: ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
If you’ve studied the terminal window at any length, you probably know about the clear command, which clears the screen. Under MS-DOS, and on my old TRS-80, the command is cls. Same thing.
Continue reading
Adding Two Values
Difficulty: ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Adding values is a basic programming concept: 4 + 5 = 9 But where do the values come from? They can be literals, variables, expressions, or values collected from the user.
Continue reading
Calculating the Standard Deviation
Difficulty: ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Even when statistics has barely brushed by you on the subway, you probably know the term standard deviation. It refers to how data is distributed in a group, their distance from the mean. You can use your C programming kung fu to code the standard deviation of a data set, which is the challenge for this month’s Exercise.
Continue reading
Calculating the Absolute Value
Difficulty: ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
I started my technology writing career at a computer book publishing house, CompuSoft. It’s no longer around, but I do recall ghost writing books such as the BASIC Handbook, which was an encyclopedia of the BASIC programming language. The first command listed in this book was ABS.
Continue reading
Calculating the Subfactorial
Difficulty: ★ ★ ★ ★
Calculating a factorial is a common programming exercise, often coupled with introducing the concept of recursion. Mathematically, the factorial has a twin: the subfactorial. Its calculation can be a fun programming challenge, which is the subject of this month’s Exercise.
Continue reading
Positive Negative Positive Negative
Difficulty: ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
One of my pastimes is watching math videos. I was a terrible math student, but I enjoy the videos. Occasionally a concept is presented that I can program in C. This month’s Exercise covers one of these concepts.
Continue reading
The swap() Function
Difficulty: ★ ★ ★ ☆
Swapping values is common task in computer programming, often used when sorting. You need the value of variable a in variable b and vice-versa. A number of methods are available for swapping, most of which involve using a temporary variable to hold one of the values during the swap.
Continue reading