CS2022: Introduction to C

Fall 2011

Announcements

Overview

This course provides a brief introduction to the C programming language and standard libraries for students with programming experience at the CS1110 level. We will cover basic syntax, programming paradigm, standard libraries, and debugging for C on the GNU/Linux platform.

Organization

• When & Where:

  Mondays:	12:20-13:10	(245 Olin Hall)
  Wednesdays:	12:20-13:10	(245 Olin Hall)
  Fridays:	8:00-8:50	(361 B7 Upson Hall)

• Instructor: Hussam Abu-Libdeh [first name @cs.cornell.edu]
• Office Hours:
  • Wednesdays 11:10am - 12:10pm
  • Location: 4139 Upson Hall
  Email me before coming to office hours. I might be in my lab downstairs.

Assignments & Grading

The homework assignments will be released and submitted through the Course Management System.

As this is a S/U course, to complete it successfully you need a "pass" on all of the homework assignments on C programming.  This course follows the Cornell University Code of Academic Integrity. Each student in this course is expected to abide by the Cornell University Code of Academic Integrity. You should not discuss solutions to the assignments with your classmates.  This not only implies that you should have written them but also that you should understand them! You are free to consult books and online resources, but you will have to properly cite them. If there is enough interest, a more elaborate "final" project might be an option for completing the class, provided that it covers all features in the homeworks.

Development Environment

The class will use Linux as an environment for development and testing. Programs will be compiled with gcc and debugging will be done with gdb. You can do the homeworks on other platforms, but testing will be done on Linux and thus it is recommended to try to use Linux.

Homeworks

• Homework 1 Due Tuesday September 6 Thursday September 8 at 11:59 PM on CMS.
  • Solutions: fact1.c,  fact2.c,  zipper.c
• Homework 2 Due Sunday September 18 at 11:59 PM on CMS.
  • Solutions: charfreq.c
• Homework 3 Due Sunday September 25 at 11:59 PM on CMS.

Syllabus and Lecture Slides

1. General Introduction
2. Basic Syntax, Hello World
   • examples shown in class: Hello World,  Variables,  Functions,  Conditionals,  Command Line Arguments, 
3. Pointers
   • examples shown in class: Swapping values with pointers and without
4. Memory Model
   • examples shown in class: Bad stack usage.  Good heap usage
5. Arrays & Strings
6. Enums, Strucs, Unions, Function Pointers, and typedef
   • examples shown in class: Enums,  Structs,  Unions,  Function pointers,  typedef.
7. A basic tutorial on using the Linux command-line shell. No slides used in class.
   • Helpful slides from my Unix course: Moving around the filesystem, and A very quick taste of Vim.
     (Note: both slide sets contain more info than was covered in class, use them only as reference)
8. Debugging using GDB
   • examples used in class: Pointers vs Arrays,  Tracing using fprintf,  stderr vs stdout (compile this program, and then redirect its output to a file to see the effect. Example, ./stderr > output.txt),  Stepping through a program that throughs a segmentation fault
9. File & Network IO
   • class examples:  Terminal IO (keyboard),  File IO (requires a text file called file.txt in its directory),  Network Server,  Network Client (run the server first then the client).
10. The Preprocessor
    • class examples:
      • #include: include.c,  minmax.h,  minmax.c
        Compile with gcc include.c minmax.c
      • #define: define.c
      • #ifdef: ifdef.c,  mylib.h,  mylib.c
        Compile with gcc -DDEBUG ifdef.c mylib.c to use the custom malloc and free.
        Compile without the -DDEBUG option and you will use the default malloc and free.
        Alternatively, you can just add a #define DEBUG at the beginning of ifdef.c to use the custom functions.
11. Serialization & Bitwise Operations
    • class examples: exercise.c,  iteration1.c,  iteration2.c
12. Threads
    • class examples:
      • threads.c: compile with gcc -pthread
      • counters.c: compile with gcc -pthread. This code is meant to demonstrate synchronization issues across threads. Consider taking the Operating Systems course (CS 4410) to learn more about this subject.
13. Goto, Exceptions, and Assembly in C
14. Course Recap