C Programming Course for Beginners and First-Year Students

Install a C compiler and write, compile and run your first programs.

• Where C is used today: operating systems, embedded devices, databases
• Installing GCC (MinGW-w64 on Windows) and setting up VS Code or Code::Blocks
• Structure of a C program: headers, main(), statements
• Compiling and running from the terminal
• Comments, syntax rules and reading compiler errors

GCCVS CodeCode::BlocksOnlineGDB (optional)

Practice: Hello World printer · Welcome message that uses the user's name

Store values in the right data types and calculate with C's operators.

• Variables and constants
• Data types: int, float, double, char
• Type modifiers: short, long, unsigned
• Input and output with printf() and scanf(), format specifiers
• Type casting
• Arithmetic, relational, logical, assignment, increment/decrement and ternary operators

Practice: Basic calculator · Celsius-Fahrenheit converter · Simple interest calculator

Write programs that make decisions and repeat work.

• if, else if and switch
• for, while and do...while loops
• break and continue (and why goto is best avoided)
• Nested loops and pattern printing

Practice: Leap year checker · Multiplication table generator · Number-guessing game

Split programs into functions and solve problems with recursion.

• Defining and calling functions, prototypes
• Parameters and return types
• Pass by value, and how pointers let a function change the caller's variables
• Recursion: factorial, Fibonacci, power
• Menu-driven programs

Practice: GCD and LCM finder · Recursive calculator · Menu-driven utility app

Store and process lists of values, tables and text.

• One- and two-dimensional arrays
• Traversal, linear search and binary search
• Simple sorting and merging
• Strings as character arrays and the null terminator
• string.h functions: strlen(), strcpy(), strcmp(), strcat()
• Safe input with fgets() instead of the removed gets()

Practice: Student marks analyser (2D array) · Palindrome checker · Word counter

Understand addresses and pointers, and allocate memory at run time safely.

• What a pointer is: addresses and dereferencing
• Pointers with arrays, strings and functions
• Pointer arithmetic and pointers to pointers
• malloc(), calloc(), realloc() and free()
• Dynamic arrays and strings
• Memory leaks, dangling pointers and how to avoid them

Practice: Swap two numbers using pointers · Reverse an array with pointers · Dynamic list of students

Group related data into your own types to model real records.

• Defining and using struct
• Arrays of structures and nested structures
• Passing structures to functions
• Pointers to structures and the -> operator
• union and enum, and when to use them

Practice: Student record system · Bank account simulation · Hospital patient tracker

Save program data to files and read it back reliably.

• fopen(), fclose(), fprintf(), fscanf(), fgets()
• File modes: r, w, a and binary modes
• Writing and reading structures with fwrite() and fread()
• Checking for file errors

Practice: Attendance tracker · Data logger · Phonebook saved to a file

Use the preprocessor, bitwise operators and multiple source files like real C projects.

• Bitwise operators and bit manipulation
• typedef, macros and preprocessor directives (#define, #ifdef)
• Storage classes: auto, register, static, extern
• Command-line arguments
• Header files, splitting code across files, and a simple Makefile
• A first look at C in Linux system programming and embedded systems (concepts)

MakeGDB

Practice: Bit counter · Macro-based maths library · Command-line argument parser

Build core data structures by hand and understand how they use memory.

• Singly, doubly and circular linked lists
• Stacks and queues using arrays and linked lists
• Binary tree basics
• Bubble, selection and insertion sort

Practice: Stack-based expression evaluator · Queue simulation for a ticket counter · Linked-list student directory