CSCI 235 — diff C Java 1

Our reference

• Chapters 1 to 6 and 13 of An Introduction to the C Programming Language and Software Design

But let’s start with some Fall 2015 CSCI 255 notes on C vs Java or the Fall 2011 ECE 209 C overview.

Chapter 1 — Introduction

• Designed to compete with assembly language
• Has a goto
• No objects
• if, while and for
  • but the condition is an int not a boolean
• C preprocessor

Chapter 2 — Types, Operators, and Expressions

• Similar integer types to Java but weaker standardization of size
  • Is the largest int 32767 or 2147483647?
  • No boolean, int does the job
  • No byte in C
  • Java char is like a C unsigned short
• Standard C I/O is important and influenced Java I/O (more O than I)
• Similar cast operations, but narrowing without cast is allowed

Chapter 3 — Branching and Iteration

• Looks like Java with a goto

Chapter 4 — Functions

• functions are not methods
• C has function prototypes to specify the function interface
  • See fprintf man page
• The main function returns an integer to indicate success or failure
  • Success is usually 0 — see mkdir
  • exit is a bailout
• C standard library has many useful functions

Chapter 5 — Scope and Extent

This is not Java.

• Spring 2017 CSCI 255 notes

Chapter 13 — Input and Output

• %[flags][width][.precision][length]specifier
  • The C/C++ printf is a bit like the Java format
• %[*][width][length]specifier
  • The C/C++ scanf is very different from the Java Scanner
  • C input uses pointers
• Blame it all on FORTRAN
• In practice C++ I/O, with its heavy use of operator overloading and multiple inheritance, does not look at all like C and Java I/O
• File control: fopen and fclose
• Stream access
  • Character: fgetc and fputc
  • String: fgets and fputs
  • Record: fread and fclose
• Random access: fseek and ftell
• Command line arguments
• Fall 2010 ECE 209 formatting notes

C I/O example from Fall 2017

• File programmng assignment
• Solved file programming assignment
  • The C code
  • The Makefile