C

C PROGRAMMING
Considering that there are many feet of books on C at the UCSD bookstore,
it is unrealistic to attempt a comprehensive overview of the language in
part of a one-quarter course. Rather I hope to provide enough to get
you started writing programs and familiar enough with the general idea
that you will be able to pick up more skills as your programming experience
grows.
Why not C++?

(1) I don't know C++
(2) Numerical Recipies is available in C, not C++
Why not FORTRAN?

(1) More students now know C
(2) Some people tell me C is better
What if I already know C?

(1) You may not need to take most of this course
(2) But if you do, you can help other students (and me...)
What C textbook would you recommend?

I have only looked at a few books. Kernighan and Ritchie (KR) is a
standard of sort and is quite readable. But the programming
examples are computer-science oriented and not typical of scientific
applications. I also bought Brooks (C Programming: The Essentials
for Engineers and Scientists); this would be a good choice if you
have little programming experience. The examples are more typical
of geophysical programs than KR.
Although I will try to make these notes self-contained and provide

enough information to do the homework assignments, I advise you to
buy or borrow a C book to use as a reference to fill in the many
gaps.
To standardize things, I am going to assume that everyone has access

to a Sun workstation and the Sun C compiler. I do not want to have
to deal with PCs, CodeWarrier, and pull-down menu stuff. Let's keep
it simple, OK?
--------------------------- HELLO WORLD -------------------------------------
The best way to learn a computer language is to start writing short

programs that work and then gradually add complexity. The traditional
first C program prints out "hello, world" and looks something like this:
(hello.c)
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("hello, world\n");
return 0;
}
Let's examine this line by line:
#include <stdio.h>
By itself, C is a quite low-level language that cannot do many of the
things that one expects a language to be able to do. To expand the
capabilities of the language many standard libraries are available
in C installations but they must first be loaded. This is done at
the beginning of the program. The <stdio.h> library facilitates input
and output and is the most commonly used library. As we will see
later, the <math.h> library is necessary for doing all but the most
elementary mathematics.
EVERY C PROGRAM THAT WE WRITE IN THIS CLASS WILL NEED <stdio.h>
Note that this line does NOT end in a semi-colon.
int main()
Every program in C is actually a series of functions. Every program must
have one function called "main" that tells the compiler where to start
executing. The "int" defines main as an integer function that will return
an integer value. The "()" provides space for the function arguments;
in this case there are none. Finally, the contents of the function are
included between the curly brackets, { and }. For clarity, it is conventional
to indent the contents of the function.
This statement sends "hello, world\n" to the screen. The quotes serve to
define a character string. \n is C notation for a newline character so
that the cursor advances to the next line. If you leave out \n then
the cursor will remain at the end of the line. Thus, we could have written
printf("hello, ");
printf("world\n");
and we would get the same result. Forgetting the "\n" is a common mistake
for beginning programmers (at least it was for me).
Finally, you MUST end the statement with a semi-colon. This may seem
unnatural if you are used to FORTRAN. A new line within a C function
does not mean anything. For example, the program would run just fine as:
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf
("hello, world\n");
return 0;
}
Similarly we can combine two statements on one line if they are separated
by a semi-colon. The following will also work:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){printf("hello, world\n"); return 0;}
There are differences in programming style. Some people seem to think that
it is more efficient to put multiple statements on the same line. Perhaps
they want to be able to brag that their program "only took five lines of code."
This makes no sense to me. Their programs don't run any faster; they just
are harder to read. Thus, for your class assignments, DO NOT PUT MORE THAN
ONE STATEMENT ON EACH LINE.
return 0;
Functions normally return a value to the main program. In this case. main
is an integer function so we return an integer value. We do this simply for
the sake of completeness here because this value is never used.
This example shows one way to write this program. KR uses a slightly different
style:
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
}
This will run just fine. It is not required that the main function be defined
as an integer or that a value be returned. Another convention is used by
Numerical Recipies. i.e.,
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
return 0;
}
This matches my convention except that "void" is used to explicitly specify

that main has no arguments.
---------------- COMPILING AND RUNNING C PROGRAMS ----------------------
The C source code is just an ascii file (use your favorite text editor);
the file name should end in .c, thus hello.c is the name of the program
discussed above. To run the program, you first must create an executable
version of the code by running the C compiler. On a UNIX system, this
is done as follows:
cc hello.c -o hello
or
make hello
This should create the executable file "hello". However, if the compiler
finds syntax errors in your code, you will get a list of error messages
instead. To run the program, just enter the program name:
rock% hello
hello, world
rock%
If for some reason, you type "hello" and get a message something like
"hello: Command not found" then you probably don't have "set path" set
up correctly in your .cshrc file (see UNIX notes).
ASSIGNMENT C1
Write a C program to print your favorite pithy phrase.
------------------------ HOW TO MULTIPLY TWO INTEGERS ------------------
Here is a simple C program to multiply 2 and 3:

(multint.c)
/* test program to multiply two integers */
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int a, b, c; /* declare variables */
a = 2;
b = 3;
c = a * b;
printf("Product = %d \n",c);
return 0;
}
Notice that we have included some comment lines in this example.

Comments in C are bracketed by /* and */ and can appear anywhere
in the code. A common syntax error is to have a mismatch somewhere
in these comment endpoints.
After compiling, the result of running this program is:
rock% multint
Product = 6
rock%
This program uses three variables: a, b, and c. All variables in C must

be declared at the beginning of the function in which they are used. The
"int" statement declares them as integers. For the Sun C compiler, these
are 4-byte integers that can range from -2147483648 to 2147483647.
(Alternatively, these variables could have been defined using
float a, b, c;
in which case they would be floating point (real) variables. For the
Sun compiler, floats range from 1.175494e-38 to 3.402823e+38)
The values of a and b are set on separate lines. Sometimes you will see
this done in the variable definition, e.g.,
int a=2, b=3, c;
This is permitted but, as a FORTRAN programmer, I'm not used to this and
usually prefer to assign the variables on separate lines.
c = a * b;
This sets c to the product of a and b. As in FORTRAN, * indicates
multiplication. Other arithmetic operations are as you might expect
(+ for add, - for subtract, / for divide, parentheses can be used to
define the order of operation).
This prints the string "Product = " followed by the value of c and a
newline character. The "%d" is not printed; instead it defines the
format in which c is printed. Some examples of different formats are:
%d print as integer
%8d print as integer at least 8 characters wide (including blanks)
(useful to make output line up nicely in columns)
%f print as floating point (real) number

%7f print floating point as least 7 characters wide (including decimal point)
%7.2f print as floating point at least 7 wide, with 2 after decimal point
%c print single character

%s print character string variable
%i is sometimes used as an integer format but I don't recommend it

because it causes input with leading zeros to be interpreted as
octal!
ASSIGNMENT C2
Write a program called multfloat.c that multiplies 2.88 and 3.14 and
prints the output with two digits to the right of the decimal place.
--------------- MAKING A TRIG TABLE USING A FOR STATEMENT --------------
Any reasonable programming language must provide a way to loop over a series
of values for a variable. In FORTRAN this is done with the "do" statement.
In C, this is most naturally implemented with the "for" statement.
Here is an example program that generates a table of trig functions:
(trigtable.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
int main()
{
float theta, stheta, ctheta, ttheta, degrad;
degrad = 180./3.1415927;
for (theta=0.0; theta<89.5; theta=theta+1.0){
ctheta = cos(theta/degrad);
stheta = sin(theta/degrad);
ttheta = tan(theta/degrad);
printf("%5.1f %6.4f %6.4f %7.4f \n",theta,ctheta,stheta,ttheta);
}
return 0;
}
First, notice that we have included the math library so that we can access
the trig functions. IN ORDER TO ACCESS THE MATH LIBRARY USING THE SUN
COMPILER YOU MUST ALSO USE THE -lm COMPILER OPTION, e.g.,
cc -lm trigtable.c -o trigtable
If you just enter "make trigtable" or "cc trigtable.c -o trigtable" you

will get error messages for undefined symbols. This drove me nuts for
awhile until I asked somebody about it. None of my C books ever mention
this. If you would like the convenience of being able to continue saying
simply "make trigtable" in order to compile the program, you will need to
create a Makefile (see discussion later in notes for details).
The C math library uses radians (not degrees) as the arguments of the
trig functions. Thus, following the definitions of the variables as
floats, we assign degrad to 180/pi so that we can easily make this
conversion.

This defines the "for" loop which must eventually be closed with a "}"
For clarity, we indent the inside of the loop. This is a loop over
values of theta from a starting value of 0.0, incremented by 1.0
each time, until theta is not less than 89.5. Thus theta will assume
the values (0.0, 1.0, 2.0, ...., 88.0, 89.0) inside the loop. Note
that the statements inside "for ( )" must be separated by semi-colons,
not commas.
Inside the for loop we compute the cosine, sine and tangent of theta,
after converting from degrees to radians by dividing by degrad. We output
the results to the screen using a fixed floating point format so that the
numbers line up nicely in columns.
An alternative way to handle this loop is to use a "while" statement:
theta = 0.0;
while (theta<89.5){
ctheta = cos(theta/degrad);
stheta = sin(theta/degrad);
ttheta = tan(theta/degrad);
theta=theta+1.0;
}
This is a little less natural for this example, however.
The conversion variable, degrad, has a single fixed value in this program.
It also is likely to be useful in other C functions that we may want to
add to the program. Thus it is good programming practice to define
degrad as a "symbolic constant" that can be used thoughout the program.
In our case, the trig table program would look like this:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
#define DEGRAD 57.29577951
int main()
{
float theta, stheta, ctheta, ttheta;
ctheta = cos(theta/DEGRAD);
stheta = sin(theta/DEGRAD);
ttheta = tan(theta/DEGRAD);
}
return 0;
}
By convention, symbolic constant names are written in upper case

so that they can be distinguished from variable names (usually
written in lower case). Whenever a symbolic constant appears in
the code, it is replaced by the text (character string) listed in
the #define statement.
Student question:
Why will the following statement not work in the program?
#define DEGRAD 180./3.1415927
Why will this alternative work?
#define DEGRAD (180./3.1415927)
Why is this not as efficient as DEGRAD 57.29577951 ?
ASSIGNMENT C3
Write a C program to print a table of x, sinh(x), and cosh(x)
for values of x ranging from 0.0 to 6.0 at increments of 0.5.
Use a suitable format to make nicely aligned columns of numbers.
Note: You can use the cosh and sinh functions in the math library.
x is NOT in degrees. Do not apply the DEGRAD conversion factor.
--------------- IF STATEMENTS + HOW TO FIND MAX(A,B) ----------------
Suppose we want to assign z to the maximum of x and y. There is

no built-in MAX function in C like there is in FORTRAN or MATLAB
so we will have to figure out how to do this ourselves. One approach
is to use an "if" statement:
z = x;
if (y > x) z = y;
This is not very aesthetic but it does the job. The statement
inside the parenthesis is tested; if true, the following statement
(or a series of statements enclosed in braces) is executed.
Here is a summary of the common operators used inside the "if" test
and their FORTRAN and MATLAB equivalents
C FORTRAN MATLAB meaning
== .eq. == equals
!= .ne. ~= does not equal
< .lt. < less than
> .gt. > greater than
<= .le. <= less than or equal to
>= .ge. >= greater than or equal to
&& .and. & and
|| .or. | or
These operators can be combined to make complex tests.e.g,
if ( (a > b && c <= 0 ) || d = 0) z == a;
There is, of course, an order of operations for these things

which I can't remember very well. Look it up in a C book if
you are unsure or, better, just put in enough parenthesis to
make it completely clear to anyone reading your code.
WARNING: If you use = instead of == in a conditional statement

you will probably not get an error message (variable
assignments are allowed within conditionals) but you
will get strange results.
These operators are also used in the FOR and WHILE loops that
we discussed earlier. For example, we could write:
for (i=0; i<=10 && error != -1; i=i+1) { }
In this case we loop from i=0 to i=10, but exit the loop
immediately if error = -1 (the error variable could be
assigned to this in the code inside the loop).
Now, let's return to the example for finding the maximum.

Our snippet of code is rather ugly and is inefficient in
the sense that z is assigned twice if y>x. We can improve
things by using an if-else construction:
if (y < x)
z = x;
else
z = y;
Now z is only assigned once. Although this takes more lines,

it is a better way to code this because it is more efficient
and it is easier to understand the author's intent.
More generally the if-else construction has the form:
if (condition1)
{statements 1}
else if (condition2)
{statements 2}
...
...
else
{statements n}
The program checks each condition in turn. As soon as one is

true it executes the appropriate statement(s) and then skips
to the end of the construction. If no condition is found to
be true, then the statements following "else" are executed.
If the final else is absent then no statements are excuted.
Our use of "if-else" to find the maximum has an alternative

in C called the conditional expression. In our case it
would look like this:
z = (x > y) ? x : y; /* z = max(x, y) /*
? is called a ternary operator. z is assigned to x or y

depending upon whether (x > y) is true. More generally,
we have the conditional expression:
expr1 ? expr2 : expr3
expr1 is evaluated first. If it is true (non-zero) then

expr2 is evaluated and becomes the value of the expression,
otherwise expr3 is evaluated and becomes the value of
the expression.
KR has a cute example of this:
printf("You have %d items%s.\n", n, n==1 ? "" : "s");
Finally, you may need to compute max(x,y) many times in

your program and you'd like the convenience of actually
having a max() function like FORTRAN has. You could write
a C function (more about this later) but you would have
to do this separately for real and integer variables. A
more general method is to use #define to create a macro
for MAX, i.e.,
#define MAX(A,B) ( (A) > (B) ? (A) : (B) )
As in the DEGRAD example above, this statement goes at the

top of your program following the #include statements. Now
in the program, the line
z = MAX(x+y, x-y);
will be replaced by the line
z = ( (x+y) > (x-y) ? (x+y) : (x-y) )
------------------ INPUT USING KEYBOARD --------------
So far all of our example programs have run without prompting

the user for any information. To expand our abilities, let's
learn how to use the "scanf" function, which is the input
version of printf. In most programs, we will want to first prompt
the user to input the data, so here is an example of how to
input two numbers:
printf("Enter two integers \n");

scanf("%d %d", &a, &b);
The formats are identical to those used in printf, in this case

%d and %d indicate that integers are to be input. Now for the
confusing part! a and b are not input in scanf in the same way
that they would be output in printf. They must be input as
what are called "pointers" in scanf. We will have more to say
about pointers later; for now the only thing to remember is that
the variable names in scanf MUST be preceded by & so we write
&a and &b, not a and b. If you forget this, the program will
likely compile without error but you will probably get a
"Segmentation Fault" message right after you input the numbers
during run time.
(Here I must add an additional warning. Do NOT include any

extra spaces at the end of the format string within the scanf
call. For example, do not say
scanf("%d %d ", &a, &b); /* THIS WILL NOT WORK PROPERLY!!! */

This will not give a compiler error, but the computer will not
move to the next line if you hit a return after entering the
second number. Instead, it will wait until you enter another
number (or a blank space). This will completely foul up your
inputs! This unfortunate behavior of scanf is actually related
to a more advanced feature of scanf, its ability to search for
strings in the input stream that match a desired target string
in the format string. This may be useful in some circumstances
if particular data values are "flagged" with ascii codes in
the input stream. )
Here is an example of a complete program that multiplies two

numbers:
(usermult.c)
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
int a, b, c;
scanf("%d %d", &a, &b);
c = a * b;
return 0;
}
Running this program, we have:
rock% usermult
Enter two integers
3 5
Product = 15
So far, so good. But what if the user is bad at reading directions

and enters a real number by mistake?
rock% usermult
Enter two integers
3.1 15
Product = -12790968
Clearly our program is not very robust w.r.t. this kind of error.
Unfortunately, there is no C equivalent to the FORTRAN free-format
read statement (i.e., read *, a, b).
One solution would be rewrite the program to read, multiply and

output real numbers (floats). In this case there is no way to
accidentally read an integer (3 gets read in as 3.0). But this
program would still be vulnerable to problems if the user were
to enter a character (letter) by mistake rather than a number.
Suppose we want to keep the construction of the original program.

How can we check for problems? The most direct approach takes
advantage of the fact that scanf is actually a function that returns
the number of input items successfully read. In this case, this
should be 2 so a more robust program would be:
(usermult2.c)
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
int a, b, c;
if ( scanf("%d %d", &a, &b) == 2){
c = a * b;
} else
printf("***Error in input \n");
return 0;
}
Notice that the scanf statement now appears within the if statement.
This will look strange to FORTRAN programmers, but this type of
construction is extremely common in C.
Careless users running this program will now obtain:
rock% usermult2
Enter two integers
3.1 5
Error in input
rock%
This example highlights a key goal in good programming--to

anticipate and flag potential problems as the code is being
written. This may seem like a trivial example, but this kind
of input error could occur in the middle of a complicated
program and not cause the program to crash, just to get the
wrong answer! Spending a little extra time in writing robust
code can save hours of debugging later.
Finally, let's change the code so that it will allow the user
to continue entering numbers until he/she wants to stop:
(usermult3.c)
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
int a, b, c;
while (1) {
printf("Enter two integers (zeros to stop)\n");
if ( scanf("%d %d", &a, &b) != 2){
fflush(stdin);
} else if (a == 0 && b == 0)
break;
else {
c = a * b;
}
}
return 0;
}
There are some new things in this example:
(1) while(1) is used for a while loop that will continue forever.
Previously we tested a condition to see if it continued to be
true. In C, true conditionals are assigned the value 1; thus 1
is always true and the while loop will continue forever.
(2) We use the "break" statement to manually exit the while loop
in the case where both a and b are zero. "break" is an extremely
useful command and can also be used to exit "for" loops.
(3) We use "fflush(stdin)" to clear the keyboard buffer following the
input error so that we can safely try inputting again. It is
often a good idea to precede any scanf statement following the
first with fflush(stdin).
ASSIGNMENT C4
Write a program to repeatedly prompt the user for a positive
real number. If it is negative, ask the user to try again. If
it is positive, compute and display the square root using the
sqrt() function in <math.h> (remember to use the -lm option
with the Sun compiler. Stop the program if the user enters
a zero. Make the program robust with respect to input errors.
------------------------- i++ and i+= SYNTAX ------------------------
So far we used the following syntax when we have wanted to increase

a variable by one:
i = i + 1;
This is normal usage in BASIC or FORTRAN. C, however, allows a more

compact expression using the increment operator ++
i++;
which has exactly the same meaning. In addition, the two FORTRAN
statements:
j = i
i = i + 1
can now be expressed as:
j = i++;
Note that one is added to i AFTER j is set to i. We can also write:
j = ++i;
in which case the one is added BEFORE setting j to i. In other words,

this last example in FORTRAN is:
i = i + 1
j = i
There are corresponding C statements using the decrement operator (--),

"i--" and "--i", that work in the obvious way.
A related feature of C is to be able to express i = i + 2 as:
i += 2;
In this case += is called an assignment operator. There are related
expressions using -, * and /, i.e.,
n -= 10; means n = n - 10
x *= 2.0; means x = 2.0 * x
zeta /= 8.3; means zeta = zeta/8.3
In all cases of ++, *=, etc., the arguments can be integers or

floats.
Some C books assert that using the increment or assignment operators

(as opposed to their more verbose equivalents) can sometimes make your
code run faster. I tested this idea on a few examples, but always
found that there was no difference in speed, implying that the Sun
compiler is smart enough to optimize things correctly in either case.
Thus, if you are more comfortable using the longer versions of these
statements, I see no compelling reason to stop (and your code will be
more readable to novices in C!). However, you should still be aware
of what these statements mean so that you can understand existing C
code that you may encounter. Most C programmers will use ++, *=, etc.,
in order to generate more compact code.
--------------------- GREATEST COMMON FACTOR EXAMPLE ------------------
Here is an example program that uses some of the concepts that we have
just learned:
(gcf.c)
/* computes the greatest common factor of two integers */

#include <stdio.h>
#define MIN(A,B) ( (A) < (B) ? (A) : (B) )
int main()
{
int a, b, i, imax;
while (1) {
if ( scanf("%d %d", &a, &b) != 2){
fflush(stdin);
} else if (a == 0 && b == 0)
break;
else {
for (i=1; i<=MIN(a,b); i++){
if (a % i == 0 && b % i == 0) imax=i;
}
printf("Greatest common factor = %d \n",imax);
}
}
return 0;
}
Remember that % is the modulus operator that returns the remainder of

a % i. This is not a particularly efficient algorithm, but it runs plenty
fast for small numbers.
ASSIGNMENT C5
Modify gfc.c to compute the least common multiple of two integers.
-------------------------- USER DEFINED FUNCTIONS ------------------------
As the length and complexity of a computer program grows, it is a good

strategy to break the problem down into smaller pieces by defining
functions to perform smaller tasks. This provides several advantages:
(1) You can test these functions individually to see if they work before
trying to get the complete program to work.
(2) Your code is more modular and easier to understand.
(3) It is easier to use parts of the program in a different program.
To illustrate how to define your own function, here again is the greatest
common factor program:
(gcf2.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#define MIN(A,B) ( (A) < (B) ? (A) : (B) )
int getgcf(int a, int b); /* computes greatest common factor */
int main()
{
int a, b;
while (1) {
if ( scanf("%d %d", &a, &b) != 2){
fflush(stdin);
} else if (a == 0 && b == 0)
break;
else {
printf("Greatest common factor = %d \n",getgcf(a,b));
}
}
return 0;
}
int getgcf(int a, int b)

/* MIN must be available as global macro */
{
int i, imax;
for (i=1; i<=MIN(a,b); i++){
if (a % i == 0 && b % i == 0) imax=i;
}
return imax;
}
getgcf is a user-defined function that computes the greatest common

factor of two numbers. A program can contain any number of user-defined
functions and these functions can call each other as well as be called
from the main program.
The line immediately before the main program
int getgcf(int a, int b);
is called a "function prototype" and alerts the compiler to the existence

of the function and its arguments. The use of function prototypes was
introduced into C to improve its ability to detect errors. Older C programs
do not always include these statements. If function prototypes are not
used, however, then the functions must be included in the program BEFORE
they are called by any other functions. In this case, the program source
code will have the awkward structure of having the "main" part of the
program come last! Thus, function prototypes should be used to improve
the clarity of your code and so that your programs will conform to the
newer ANSI C standard.
The "int" indicates that the function will return an integer value. The
argument list follows inside the parenthesis and indicates what type of
numbers are to be passed to the function. The actual variable names
in the function prototype (a and b in this example) are optional and are
not actually used by the program. They are chosen at the convenience of
the programmer and often simply match the variable names in the function
or in the calling program.
The actual function is normally included after the main program, although
the code would still work if the main program came last. In the argument
list, a and b are the names of the variables that are used in the function;
they must agree in number and type (int, float, etc.) with the variables
in the calling program, but they can have different names.
The values of a and b in this example are passed to the function, but
they are not passed back to the main program. Only the returned value
of the function (imax) in this case goes back to the calling program.
This is a big difference between C and FORTRAN. In a FORTRAN subroutine,
the variables in the argument list are passed back to the main program.
In a C function, the variable in the function can be changed without
these changes affecting the values of the variables in the calling program.
We will have more to say about this difference when we talk about pointers.
ASSIGNMENT C6
Modify your program from C5 to compute the least-common multiple as a
user-defined function.
ASSIGNMENT C7
Write a function that computes the volume of a sphere, given its radius,
together with a main program that inputs different values and outputs the
result.
-------------------------------- ARRAYS --------------------------------
Arrays are indicated by brackets following the variable name and are
defined, for example, as follows:
float x[100];
x can now assume 100 different values, from x[0] to x[99]. Yes, you
read correctly. C assumes that the array indices start with zero!
This is a BIG difference from FORTRAN and can be very confusing.
In this example, x[100] is out of bounds! Thus, if you want to be
able to refer to x[1] through x[100], you should define x as:
float x[101];
In this case, x[0] is wasted. If this bothers you, we will show a

trick later that uses pointers to avoid this slight inefficiency.
Unfortunately, there is no equivalent in C to the FORTRAN usage
real x(-100:100),y(0:5)
that explicitly allows you to choose the index range of each variable.
It is possible to write C functions, however, that provide this
kind of control on array indices, and Numerical Recipes includes these
in its nrutil.c package.
Another big difference from FORTRAN is that brackets are used for
array indices, not parenthesis. You will get an error if you write
x(15) when you meant x[15].
Finally, higher dimensional arrays are indicated with multiple sets

of brackets, not parentheses within a single set of brackets. For example,
a 2-dimensional array element x(2,3) in FORTRAN is written in C
as:
x[2][3]
We will have more to say about high-dimensional arrays later.
Here is an example program that uses an array to compute prime numbers

less than 100:
(prime.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#define MAXNUM 1000
int main()
{
int i, j, prod[MAXNUM+1], nprime=0;
for (i=1; i <= MAXNUM; i++) prod[i] = 0; /* set prod array to zero */
for (i=2; i*i <= MAXNUM; i++){

if (prod[i] == 0) {
for (j=2; i*j <= MAXNUM; j++) prod[i*j] = 1;
}
}
for (i=2; i <= MAXNUM; i++){

if (prod[i] == 0) {
nprime++;
printf("%3d ", i);
if (nprime % 10 == 0) printf("\n");
}
}
printf("\n Number of primes found = %d \n",nprime);
return 0;
}
The method is sometimes called the sieve of Eratosthenes, named after

a Greek mathematician from the 3rd century BC. We start with a list
of numbers from 2 to 1000 and consider them all possible primes. In
the program, this list is the array prod. We dimension the array to
1000 + 1 = 1001 so that the final array element is prod[1000]. (recall
that arrays start with zero) We initialize the array by setting its
values to zero. The strategy is to then flag numbers that are not
prime by setting the corresponding array values to one.
We then start with the number 2 and eliminate all multiples of 2 up

to the maximum value of 1000. We then move to 3 and eliminate (i.e.,
set prod to 1) all multiples of 3. We can skip 4 because 4 and all
its multiples were already eliminated. We need check numbers, i, only
up to i*i<=1000 because larger factors would already have been eliminated.
When we are finished, we simply print out all numbers that were not
eliminated. In our case, this is all i such that prod[i] = 0. We
count the number of primes using the counter variable nprime. Note
that we output a linefeed after every ten primes so that the output
lines do not get too long.
ASSIGNMENT C8
The Sun C compiler includes a crude random number generator. Here

is an example program that prints out 20 random values from between
0 and 1.
(listrand.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h> /* contains srand and rand functions */
int main()
{
int i;
float xran;
srand(5); /* initialize generator */
printf("RAND_MAX = %d \n",RAND_MAX);
for (i=1; i<=20; i++) {
xran = (float)rand()/(float)(RAND_MAX+1);
printf("%f \n",xran);
}
return 0;
}
rand() returns an integer between 1 and RAND_MAX. Notice how

integers can be converted to floating point numbers by putting
(float) in front. In a similar fashion you can explicitly convert
floats to integers by putting (int) in front (in this case,
everything to the right of the decimal point is truncated).
Because RAND_MAX for the Sun C compiler is only 32767, there are
at most 32767 "random" values returned by this generator. Thus,
this random number generater returns only two-byte integers, and,
according to Numerical Recipes should be "categorically rejected"
for this reason (NR includes code for better random number generators
in case you are interested).
Write a simple C program to generate 10000 random numbers between 0

and 1. Test the randomness by counting the number of these that
fall in each of 10 evenly spaced bins between 0 and 1 (i.e., 0 to 0.1,
0.1 to 0.2, etc.). Print these counts to the screen. Here is an
example of what your output might look like:
0 1009
1 1048
2 1001
3 1038
4 1008
5 959
6 993
7 925
8 1017
9 1002
HINT: Set up an integer array with 10 elements and initialize

all the values to zero. For each random number generated, then
add one to the appropriate array element to keep track of how
many of the numbers are in that bin.
--------------------- ARRAYS AS FUNCTION ARGUMENTS -------------
Suppose we have defined an array x as:
int x[100];
If we use x in the argument list for a function, e.g.,
y = sumtot(x);
we include x without any brackets. It turns out that this means

that x is passed by a pointer to its first element rather than by
value (more about pointers later). This means that if values of
x are changed in a subroutine, these passed values will be returned
to the main program (unlike the case for non-array values). For
array arguments, C functions act just like FORTRAN subroutines. It
is for non-array arguments that the behavior of C is different.
The important thing to remember is that in C array variables

and non-array variables are treated differently in function calls.
---------------- CHARACTERS AND CHARACTER ARRAYS ------------
A single character variable can be defined, specified, and printed

like this:
char grade;
grade = 'A';
printf("Your grade in this class is: %c \n",grade);
Notice that the single quotes (apostrophes) are used to write 'A'
because double quotes (") are used to write strings, not a single
character.
Strings of multiple characters are handled as character arrays.

Here is an example:
char name[]="Bill Clinton";

printf("Our last president was %s \n",name);
Notice that the assignment can be made in the type statement.

The length of name consists of the 12 characters in "Bill Clinton"
plus a terminating null character '\0' that all string constants
must end with. This null character is added automatically in
the assignment statement.
Unfortunately, you cannot assign string constants like this
name = "Bill Clinton"; /* THIS WILL NOT WORK!!! */
You could laboriously assign the elements of name manually

(name[0]='B'; name[1]='i'; .... name[12]='\0') but a better
approach is to use the strcpy (string copy) function in the
<string.h> library as in this example:
(president.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main()
{
char name[81];
strcpy(name,"Bill Clinton");
printf("Our last president was %s \n",name);
strcpy(name,"George Bush");
printf("Our current president is %s \n",name);
return 0;
}
Be sure to define the size of the name array to be larger than

any possible string that you might assign to name. In this
example, name will handle strings of up to 80 characters. Otherwise
you risk overwriting variables in the memory locations beyond
the end of the array.
Here is a list of some of the string functions. (see also p. 262

of Brooks). These assume that all input and output strings are
null terminated.
strcpy(s1,s2) copies s2 to s1, returns s1

strncpy(s1,s2,n) copies n characters of s2 to s1
strcat(s1,s2) appends s2 to end of s1, returns modified s1

strncat(s1,s2) appends at most n characters of s2 to s1
strlen(s1) returns length of s1, not counting null term. char.
strcmp(s1,s2) compares s1 to s2, returns

zero if s1 and s2 are identical
negative value if s1<s2
positive value if s2>s1
strncmp(s1,s2,n) like strcmp but compares at most n values of s1 and s2
strstr(s1,s2) returns a pointer to the first occurrence of string

s2 within string s1, returns NULL otherwise
Here is an example program that uses the strstr function and also
demonstrates how to read strings from the keyboard:
(vote.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main()
{
char name[81];
printf("Who did you vote for? \n");
fflush(stdin);
fgets(name,81,stdin);
printf("Then you are likely a");
if (strstr(name,"ill") != NULL || strstr(name,"lin") != NULL)
printf(" Democrat \n");
else if (strstr(name,"eor") != NULL || strstr(name,"ush") != NULL)
printf(" Republican \n");
else
printf("n independent voter \n");
return 0;
}
We have chosen to use the library function "fgets" to read from the
keyboard (stdin in this case). 81 gives the maximum number of
characters that can be input. Sometimes C programs use the
"gets" function to read strings from the keyboard but this is
not recommended because "gets" does not set a maximum length and
thus there is a risk of entering a string that is too long which
will overwrite memory off the end of the allocated space for the
string.
fgets does have the awkward feature that it will include the
linefeed character '\n' as the 2nd to last character in the string
(before '\0' at the end).
The function "scanf" can also be used to read a string from the
keyboard as in:
scanf("%s",name);
The problem with this in our example is that any blank character
will be interpreted as the end of the input. Thus, for example,
if the user tried to input
George Bush
using scanf, the program would assign "George" to name and leave
"Bush" in the input buffer. This could screw up the next input
unless "fflush(stdin)" is called to clear the input buffer.
ASSIGNMENT C9
Write a simple version of the famous doctor program that simulates

a psychologist talking to a patient. A humorous fictional account
of such a program is contained in "Small World," the David Lodge
satire of academia. A current example of this type of program can
be found at alicebot.org.
Begin by asking the patient:
"How are you?"
Then use the fgets function to input a line from the user/patient.
Search this line for various key words that you can then use to
guide the computer's response. Design the program so that it
will continue this "conversation" between doctor and patient.
Some suggestions:
If the input string contains a "?", then respond:

"I'd prefer to ask you the questions. Why is it important to you?"
If the string contains "!", then respond:

"You seem pretty upset. What is really bothering you?"
If the string contains "mother" then respond:

"Tell me more about your mother."
If the string contains any swear words, respond:

"There is no need for that kind of language."
If you identify no key words on your list, then respond

with something generic like:
"Go on." or "Tell me more about it."
Be creative but don't spend an infinite amount of time on this

assignment. Your program will be more realistic if you use
random numbers (see above) to randomly select from a series
of possible responses so that the computer does not keep
saying the same thing.
------------------------- I/O WITH FILES --------------------------
So far, all off our examples have involved input from the keyboard
and output to the screen. Now let us see how to open files, read
from them, and write data to them. Here is a program that reads
pairs of numbers from an input file, computes their product, and
outputs the original numbers and their product to an output file.
(fileinout.c)
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
FILE *fp1, *fp2;
char infile[100], outfile[100];
float x, y, z;
printf("Enter input file name \n");
scanf("%s",infile);
fp1 = fopen(infile,"r");
if (fp1 == NULL) {
printf("***Can't open file: %s\n", infile);
return 1;
}
printf("Enter output file name \n");
fflush(stdin);
scanf("%s",outfile);
fp2 = fopen(outfile,"w");
if (fp2 == NULL) {
printf("***Can't open file: %s\n", outfile);
return 1;
}
while (1){
if (fscanf(fp1, "%f %f", &x, &y) == EOF) break;
z = x * y;
fprintf(fp2,"%8.3f %8.3f %8.3f \n", x, y, z);
}
fclose(fp1);
fclose(fp2);
return 0;
}
To open or close a file, we need to define pointers to the files.

The two pointers that we need in this program are defined in:
FILE *fp1, *fp2;
We define strings infile and outfile to contain the names of the

input and output files, respectively. We input the file names
using the "scanf" function. Because the file names will normally
not contain blanks, scanf works well for this purpose. However,
we make sure to clear the input buffer using fflush(stdin) before
attempting to read the second file name.
Incidentally, if "fgets" were used here instead of "scanf" then

the program would not work because the file name would end in a
newline character and the program would not be able to find the
file. This is an annoying "feature" of fgets. Strangely, the
"gets" function does not put '\n' at the end of its input, but,
as mentioned above, we are supposed to avoid use of "gets" these
days.
We open the first file with:
The 2nd argument is called the file mode and can assume the
following:
"r" open an existing file for input

"w" create a new file or position old file for overwriting
"a" create a new file or position old file for appending
These all assume that the files are in ascii (text). For
binary files, use "rb", "rw" and "ra".
If the program is not able to open the file it will set the
file pointer to NULL. The program tests for this and prints
out an appropriate message.
To read data from a file, we use the "fscanf" command, which

works in a similar way as "scanf" for keyboard input. Notice
that the input variables, x and y, must be input as pointers
(&x and &y). When the end of the file is reached, fscanf
returns an EOF. The program tests for this in order to
provide an exit from an otherwise infinite while loop.
Finally, the program closes the two open files using the
fclose statement. These closing statements could be
deleted in the case of this program because open files are
closed automatically upon normal termination of a program.
However, it is good practice to close files whenever their
I/O is finished.
ASSIGNMENT C10
Write a program that reads from a text file containing

5 numbers per line. Compute the mean of the 5 numbers
and then subtract the mean from each of the 5 original
numbers. Output the 5 "demeaned" numbers to an output
file. Allow the user to specify the input and output
file names.
For example, if the input file contains:
10 20 30 40 50
1 2 3 4 5
2 4 6 8 10
5 5 5 5 5
your program should write to the output file:
-20.000 -10.000 0.000 10.000 20.000

-2.000 -1.000 0.000 1.000 2.000
-4.000 -2.000 0.000 2.000 4.000
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Hint: Use the "fileinout.c" program listed above as

a template for the file handling part of your code.
--------------------- TWO-DIMENSIONAL ARRAYS --------------------
Two-dimensional arrays in C may be defined as follows:

int a[4][3]; /* DO NOT WRITE a[4,3]!! */
This defines a matrix in which the first indices will vary

from 0 to 3, the second from 0 to 2 (remember that all C
array indices start with zero).
Arrays can be initialized when they are defined, i.e., we

could write:
int a[4][3] = { {5, 3, 4},

{9, 1, 1},
{8, 7, 2},
{1, 1, 3} };
Note that the elements are stored such that one sweeps over
the second index first. This is easy to remember is one
thinks of a[i][j] as really representing (a[i])[j]. In fact,
the internal brackets are not needed and the initialization
could have been written as:
int a[4][3] = {5, 3, 4, 9, 1, 1, 8, 7, 2, 1, 1, 3};
This same convention can, of course, be used to define

vectors as well:
int b[3] = {8, 6, 8};
Arrays dimensions can also be automatically set by the

size of the initialization array, i.e.,
int b[] = {8, 6, 8};
will also work, as will:
int a[][3] = { {5, 3, 4},

{9, 1, 1},
{8, 7, 2},
{1, 1, 3} }
Notice in the two-dimensional case that the 2nd array dimensional

is required. You cannot initialize the array as:
int a[][] = ....... /* DOES NOT WORK */
Finally, if elements are left out of the array initialization,

they will be set to zero.
int a[2][3] = { {5, 3, 2}, {8, 0, 0} };
could have been written as:
int a[2][3] = {5, 3, 2, 8};
Here is an example program that multiplies two 3x3 matrices:
(matmult.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#define DIM 3
int printmat(float a[DIM][DIM] );
int main()
{
int i, j, k;
float a[DIM][DIM] = { {-5.1, 3.8, 4.2},
{ 9.7, 1.3, -1.3},
{-8.0, -7.3, 2.2} };
float b[DIM][DIM] = { { 9.4, -6.2, 0.5},
{-5.1, 3.3, -2.2},
{-1.1, -1.8, 3.0} };
float c[DIM][DIM];
for (i=0; i<DIM; i++){
for (j=0; j<DIM; j++){
c[i][j] = 0.0;
for (k=0; k<DIM; k++) c[i][j] += a[i][k] * b[k][j];
}
}
printf("Matrix a follows \n");

printmat(a);
printf("Matrix b follows \n");
printmat(b);
printf("Matrix c = a*b follows \n");
printmat(c);
return 0;
}
int printmat(float a[DIM][DIM] )

{
int i, j;
for (i=0; i<DIM; i++){
for (j=0; j<DIM; j++) printf("%7.2f ",a[i][j]);
printf("\n");
}
return 0;
}
ASSIGNMENT C11
Modify the matmult program so that the matrix multiplication

is done in a function. Add another function that computes
the transpose of a square matrix. Compute the transpose of
c and add this to the output listing. As in the example
program given above, use DIM to control the dimensions of
the matrices.
Note: Do not try to "return" the c array to the main program

using the return statement. This will not work! Instead,
include c in the function argument list, i.e. for the matrix
multiply function write something like this:
int matmult(float a[DIM][DIM], float b[DIM][DIM], float c[DIM][DIM])

{
.
< stuff to do multiply here >
.
return 0;
}
Remember that in C, changes in the values of arrays listed in

the function argument will be passed back to the main program.
This is NOT true for ordinary variables.
---------------------- ARRAYS OF STRINGS -----------------------
As we have discussed, a string is just an array of characters. Thus,

a 1-D array of strings will be a 2-D character array. Here is
an example of this:
(stringarray.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main()
{
char name[10][81];
strcpy(name[0],"Bill Clinton");
printf("Our last president was %s \n",name[0]);
strcpy(name[1],"George Bush");
printf("Our current president is %s \n",name[1]);
return 0;
}
This is a modified version of the president.c program. In this case,
char name[10][81];
defines name to be an array of ten strings of 80 characters each

(plus the null character \0). Note that the character length of
the string must be the LAST array index. As shown in the example,
we can now refer to the strings name[0], name[1], etc.
--------- A MORE COMPLICATED EXAMPLE OF PROCESSING A DATA FILE ----------
Suppose we have a data file that contains a series of measurements

that has the following form:
(datafile1)
980204 22:03:34.42
10.8
10.2
9.8
11.6
980205 08:45:22.20
5.5
7.2
6.6
980205 20:13:42.88
15.0
13.8
12.9
14.2
etc.
The structure is that there are date/time identifiers and then

a series of measurements made at that time. The problem in reading
this file is that we don't know how many measurement lines will
follow each date/time line so we can't simply perform a formatted
read on each line from the file.
Let us assume that we want to compute the mean of these measurements

and write a new file which stores this information on the same line
as the date.time. In this case, our desired output file will look
like:
(datafile2)
980204 22:03:34.42 10.60 4
980205 08:45:22.20 6.43 3
980205 20:13:42.88 13.97 4
where the final column gives the number of measurements.
Here is how such a program could be written:
(procfile.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
main()
{
FILE *fp1, *fp2;
char infile[100], outfile[100];
char linebuf[20], event[20];
int nevent, ndata;

float x, sum, xavg;
printf("Enter input file name \n");

scanf("%s",infile);
if (fp1 == NULL) {
printf("***Can't open file: %s\n", infile);
return 1;
}
printf("Enter output file name \n");

fflush(stdin);
scanf("%s",outfile);
fp2 = fopen(outfile,"w");
if (fp2 == NULL) {
printf("***Can't open file: %s\n", outfile);
return 1;
}
nevent = 0;
ndata = 0;
sum = 0.0;
while (1){
if (fgets(linebuf,20,fp1) == NULL) break;
if (strncmp(linebuf," ",1) != 0){ /* no init blank, must be event */
nevent++;
if (nevent !=1) { /* need to output previous event info */
if (ndata != 0) xavg = sum / (float)ndata;
else xavg = 0.0;
fprintf(fp2,"%s %7.2f %5d\n", event, xavg, ndata);
ndata = 0;
sum = 0.0;
}
strncpy(event,linebuf,18);
} else { /* has starting blank, must be measurement */
sscanf(linebuf,"%f",&x);
sum += x;
ndata++;
}
}
else xavg = 0.0;
fprintf(fp2,"%s %7.2f %5d \n", event, xavg, ndata);
fclose(fp1);
fclose(fp2);
return 0;
}
The beginning of the program where the files are opened is the same
as in fileinout.c (our earlier example of file I/O).
We use the "fgets" function to read one line at a time into the string
variable linebuf. Next, we use the strncmp function to check if the
first character in linebuf is blank (" "). If it is not blank, then
we know we have a data/time line. In our program, we term this an "event"
and increment an event counter at this point. If we are not on the
first event (normally the first line of the input file), then we must
at this point compute the mean of the previous set of measurements
and output the previous data/time line followed by this mean value.
Continuing, we set the event string variable to linebuf so that we
can keep this information while we overwrite linebuf later in the
program. Note that we only copy 18 characters of linebuf to event.
This is because fgets has the unfortunate property of including the
linefeed character in the string that it inputs. We can exclude
the linefeed from event by only copying the first 18 characters.
If, on the other hand, the line read into linebuf does contain a
leading blank, then we know we have a measurement line. In this
case we need to read a number from the line. This is done using
an "internal read" and the sscanf function:
sscanf(linebuf,"%f",&x);
sscanf works like fscanf except that a string variable takes

the place of the file pointer.
We read the measurement value into x and suitably increment
a running sum of x and the number of measurements.
When we reach the end of the input file, we have to output

the results of the final set of measurements. Thus, the

else xavg = 0.0;
fprintf(fp2,"%s %7.2f %5d \n", event, xavg, ndata);
part of the code appears in two places, inside the loop as

we output information from the last event before going on
to the next one, and outside the loop where we output the
information from the last event. Note that we must check
to see if there are no measurements for an event line, in
which case we do not divide by zero but simply set xavg
to zero. There should be no possibility of mistaking this
for a real measurement in the output file because the
number of measurements in this case will also be zero.
ASSIGNMENT C12
Obtain the data file, scsn.phase.dat, from mahi.ucsd.edu/pub/239.

This is a list of earthquakes and arrival time data from the
Southern California Seismic Network (SCSN) for the first two
days of August 2000. (Files like this are readily obtainable
from the SCEC Data Center at http://www.scecdc.scec.org if
you ever want to obtain more of these data. The format is
called the SCEC_DC phase format.)
Here is what part of the file looks like:
2000/08/01 14:44:12.6 L 1.1 c 35.962 -117.693 5.2 A 9159024 8 51 0 0

WRC VHZ 911 P IU1 4.41 1.26
WCS VHZ 885 P E 3 9.98 1.85
WVP VHZ 925 P IU1 11.54 2.25
TOW VHZ 813 P E 2 18.28 3.78
CLC VHZ 202 P E 2 18.49 3.37
WMF VHZ 906 P E 3 22.86 3.94
WMF VHZ 906 S E 2 22.86 7.08
WNM VHZ 908 P E 3 23.74 4.23
2000/08/01 14:45:36.8 L 1.3 h 34.806 -116.271 7.3 A 9159025 7 79 0 0
CDY VHZ 184 P IU0 6.66 1.73
RAG VHZ 1034 P IU1 17.58 3.19
RAG VHZ 1034 S E 2 17.58 5.77
RMM VHZ 647 P ID1 37.23 6.33
TPM VHZ 1033 P IU1 52.29 8.88
GRP VHZ 355 P IU1 61.21 10.14
0299 C 65535 P IU1 11395.79 7.39
2000/08/01 15:04:17.9 L 1.4 h 34.810 -116.268 7.1 A 9159030 19 83 0 0
CDY VHZ 184 P IU0 6.76 1.73
RAG VHZ 1034 P IU1 17.76 3.16
etc.
There is a line for each earthquake with the date and time (UT not
local time). For the first line in the above example, the
additional bits include:
L = local event
1.1 = magnitude
c = how magnitude was computed (coda in this case)
35.962 = lat
-117.693 = lon
5.2 = depth (km)
A = SCSN assigned quality (A=best)
9159024 = cusp id number
8 = number of lines of phase arrival time info
The station info lines include:

WRC = station name
VHZ = station channel
911 = ?
P = phase name (normally P or S)
IU1 = phase pick info
4.41 = station-event distance (km) (=X for assignment)
1.26 = travel time (s from event origin time) (=T for assignment)
Your task is to write a C program to read this file and write to

an output file a series of (X,T) points with (one X-T pair per line)
for all P arrivals for all events between 3 and 8 km depth. Then
make an X-Y plot of the T-X points using PLOTXY. Finally, write a
UNIX script that will run the program, run PLOTXY and display the
plot on the screen, all by simply typing the name of the script.
E-mail me a copy of the C program source code and the UNIX script.
The good news about this data format is that it does include a number
in the event line that lists the number of phase lines that will
follow. The bad news is that sometimes the last 1 or 2 phase lines
are "garbage" in that they have numbers instead of station names
and are some kind of calibration info. You will have to figure
out how to recognize and discard these lines in your program. Also
the phase lines begin with a tab character rather than a long
series of blanks; this may complicate things somewhat.
Hint: Don't try to write your entire C program all at once. First,
get a version working that simply reads the input file and prints
out the parts of each line that you will need (i.e., the depth
and number of phase lines for the event line, the phase name and
the X and P values for the phase lines). Once you have this
working correctly, then go on to add the part to output the
(X,T) points.
------------------------- POINTERS -------------------------
OK, we can't put it off any longer. Let's talk about pointers.
Any variable defined in a program is stored in a particular
place in the computer memory. Its "pointer" is the address
of that place in memory. Its value is the number that is stored
in that location. Thus, all computer programs must use pointers,
but some, like FORTRAN, take care of pointers internally so that
the programmer does not generally need to be concerned with them.
However, C is much more pointer oriented and knowledge of how
pointers work is necessary for many C programs.
The pointer of a variable in C can be referenced by adding

a prefix of "&" so, for example, &x refers to the pointer of the
variable named x. In the program
x = value of x
&x = pointer (memory address) for x
You can also declare pointers and give them regular names
(i.e., without the &). Pointers must refer to a specific
type of variable (i.e., int, float, char, etc.) and this
must be defined when the pointer is declared. Let us illustrate
this be defining a pointer to an integer; we will call the
pointer xpt
int *xpt
If we have a name defined as a pointer, we can refer to the

value in the memory location by adding a prefix of "*" to the
name. * is called the "dereferencing" or "indirection" operator.
Within the program, we then can thus refer to
xpt = pointer (memory location)

*xpt = value at pointer position in memory
So now let's illustrate how all this could work for a simple
program:
(testpoint.c)
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int x, y;
int *pt;
x = 1;
pt = &x; /* pt1 now points to x */
y = *pt; /* y is now set to 1 */
*pt = 2; /* x is now set to 2 */
printf("%d %d %d \n",x,y,*pt);
return 0;
}
This will print out
2 1 2
as the comment lines predict.
We can use pointers if we want to write a function that changes

the values of the input variables. Recall that C normally passes
values to functions by value and returns only the value of the
function itself.
Here is an example of how a function can be written to compute

both the area and circumference of a circle:
(circle.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#define PI 3.1415927
int areacircum(float r, float *area, float *circum);
int main()
{
float r, area, circum;
r = 1.33;
areacircum(r, &area, &circum);
printf("r, area, circum = %f %f %f \n", r, area, circum);
return 0;
}
int areacircum(float r, float *area, float *circum)

{
*area = PI * r*r;
*circum = 2. * PI * r;
return 0;
}
The variable r is passed in the normal way to the function.

However, area and circum are passed by their pointers (their
memory locations). When their values are changed within the
function, then these values are passed back to the main program.
This is very useful because often you will want to write functions
that return a number of different values, not just a single one.
---------------------- POINTERS AND ARRAYS --------------------
Pointers and arrays are closely linked. The name of an array is

actually a pointer to the first array element. For example, if
we define array x
int x[5];
then plain x (no subscript) is a pointer to the value at x[0]

(the first element in the array). If we add 1 to the pointer,
then it will point to the next array element.
Here is a short program to illustrate this:
(testarraypt.c)
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int z[5] = {11, 12, 13, 14, 15};
int *pt;
pt = z;
printf("%d %d %d \n", *pt, *(pt+1), *(pt+2) );
printf("%d %d %d \n", *z, *(z+1), *(z+2) );
return 0;
}
The result of running this program will be:
rock% testarraypt
11 12 13
11 12 13
rock%
One might ask the question: How does the program know what
the next memory address is? The answer will depend upon
the type of variable that the pointer is addressing. If
it is a (long) integer array, then it should move 4 btyes.
However, if it is a character array, then it should move
only 1 btye. Fortunately, the C compiler keeps track of
the type of variable and shifts the appropriate amount.
However, this makes it clear why pointers must be declared
as referring to a specific kind of variable.
We can use the ++ and -- operator with pointers as well,

for example,
pt++;
would move the pointer to the next array element.
The link between pointers and arrays should now clarify

why array values are passed back to the main program when
they are changed in a function. It is because arrays are
passed to functions as pointers (the address of the first
element in the array).
A word of caution. The C compiler interprets
x[10]
as
*(x+10)
without checking to see if x was dimensioned large enough

so that the value in this memory location was indeed assigned
to x. There is no easy way to check whether array indices
are out of bounds. You must therefore make very sure that
you do not exceed the array limits in your program. A common
error is to assume that if x is defined as:
int x[10];
that x[10] exists! In fact, since x starts with x[0], the last
array element is x[9].
--------------- POINTERS VS. ARRAY INDICES ------------------
Some C books assert that one should always perform operations

on arrays using pointers rather than array indices because it
will run much faster. Indeed this is sometimes claimed to be
a big advantage of C. To test this, I compared the speeds of
the following two subroutines for summing the elements of a
vector:
float sumarray1(float a[], int n){

int i;
float sum=0.0;
for (i=0; i<n; ++i) sum = sum + a[i];
return sum;
}
float sumarray2(float a[], int n){

float *point, *pointmax;
float sum=0.0;
point = a; /* pointer for a[0] */
pointmax = point + n - 1;
while (point <= pointmax){
sum += *point++;
}
return sum;
}
For multiple calls and large values of n, these ran at

virtually the same speed. Indeed, the index version was
just slightly faster than the pointer version. For
comparison, I also wrote a FORTRAN subroutine to do the
array sum. It ran at the same speed as the C index version.
If compiler optimization options (-O for f77, -fast for cc)
are invoked, the programs run much faster but again all three
versions ran at very close to the same speed.
My conclusion is that modern compilers, like the Sun compiler,

are smart enough to optimize these things correctly so there
is no speed advantage to using C versus FORTRAN or pointers
versus indices. Since indices are usually closer to the
notation used in the underlying mathematics, my recommendation
is to use index notation because your code will be clearer and
you are less likely to make a mistake. Any C junkies want
to argue with me?
----------- A TRICK TO MAKE ARRAYS START WITH ONE -----------
It is sometimes annoying that C arrays start with zero rather

than one. Here is a trick from Numerical Recipes to get
around this:
float b[4], *bb;

bb = b -1;
The pointer bb now points one location before b. As a consequence

the array elements bb[1], bb[2], bb[3] and bb[4] all exist and
are equivalent to b[0], b[1], b[2] and b[3].
However, there is no way to make this work for two-dimensional

arrays. If we declare the array a as:
float a[5][9];
then when we refer to a[i][j] the compiler instructions are:

"to the address of a, add 9*i+j and return the value just
addressed."
-------------- MORE GENERAL ARRAY AND MATRIX STUFF -------------
In FORTRAN, one has complete control over the index limits used
in matrices and arrays. For example, the statement
real x(-10:10), y(0:5,1:100)
permits referencing x(-10) to x(10) and y(0 to 5, 1 to 100).

There is no comparable C syntax that permits this. However, Numerical
Recipes provides a public-domain set of C utilities called nrutil.c
that give this kind of control. Here is a program to illustrate this:
(definearray.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#include "nrutil.c"
int main()
{
float *a, **bb;
a = vector(1,7);
a[6] = 6.4;
bb = matrix(1,13,1,9);
bb[5][5] = 3.3;
free_vector(a,1,7);
free_matrix(bb,1,13,1,9);
return 0;
}
This assumes that the nrutil.c file is within the same directory
as the program. You can grab this file from the class web site
or via anonymous ftp to mahi.ucsd.edu/pub/239.
To use the vector functions, you must define your vector variable
as a pointer (i.e., float *a). The nrutil vector functions
include:
vector(i1,i2) allocate float vector with range [i1....i2]

ivector(i1,i2) allocate int vector with range [i1....i2]
cvector(i1,i2) allocate char vector with range [i1....i2]
In each case, i1 and i2 are long integers (the default for

int with the Sun C compiler).
To use the matrix functions, you must first define your matrix
variable as a pointer to a pointer (i.e., float **b). The nrutil
functions include:
matrix(i1,i2,j1,j2) allocate float matrix with range [i1,i2][j1,j2]

imatrix(i1,i2,j1,j2) allocate int matrix
cmatrix(i1,i2,j1,j2) allocate char matrix
These functions use the C function "malloc" for allocating memory.
If your program will need this memory later, you can free it with
the free_vector and free_matrix functions. This is one of the
advantages of C over older version of FORTRAN in which array sizes
are fixed and must be declared at the beginning of the program.
In C, you can allocate and deallocate memory "on the fly."
In scientific programming, it is common to have to deal with

arrays of variable dimensions and to be able to pass these arrays
to subroutines or functions. The nrutil routines provide
a convenient way to be able to do this in C. Also included in
this package are functions that allow one to convert arrays
defined in the standard way in C to nrutil compatible arrays.
This is often necessary in order to use the Numerical Recipes
routines themselves.
----------------------- USING A MAKEFILE ------------------------
The #include "nrutil.c" statement in the above example, while

sometimes convenient for short programs, is not the standard
way to link with function libraries. It is not efficient because
the nrutil.c code is compiled every time the main program is compiled.
A better approach is to compile the nrutil.c code once and then
link to this "object code" whenever another program requires it. The
most convenient way to accomplish this is to use a Makefile.
A Makefile is a file that sits in the same directory as your programs

and has the name "Makefile" with the initial letter capitalized.
The Makefile contains instructions about how you want your programs
compiled. They can be very complicated, but we will just give some
simple examples.
Here is a Makefile that will compile the program trigtable.c
trigtable : trigtable.c
cc -lm trigtable.c -o trigtable
Note that the first line just identifies the name of the program
that we are "making" -- the executable file trigtable. This is
considered the target of the Makefile. We follow this with a colon
and then a list of everything upon which the target depends, in
this case just the source code trigtable.c.
The next line MUST start with a tab. If you use spaces, it will
not work! The "cc -lm trigtable.c -o trigtable" is simply what
will happen when you enter "make trigtable" at the UNIX command
level. The advantage of using a Makefile in this example is that it
allows us to avoid having to type in "cc -lm trigtable.c -o trigtable"
everytime we want to recompile the program.
Now let's see how we can link to the nrutil code. First, we
change our definearray.c program to start with:
(definearray2.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#include "nrutil.h"
Notice that we include the header file "nrutil.h" this time rather
than the nrutil.c source code. If we try to compile the program
without a Makefile we will get error messages because the computer
will not be able to find the vector and matrix functions. So we
must create an object code for nrutil by entering at the UNIX
command level:
cc -c nrutil.c
This will create the file nrutil.o which is what we will want to
include with our program if we are to access the functions. In
the make file, we write
definearray2 : definearray2.c nrutil.o

cc definearray2.c nrutil.o -o definearray2
In this way, we include the nrutil functions at the time that

we compile the definearray2 program. We list nrutil.o both
on the first line to indicate that the target, definearray2,
depends upon it, and on the second line when we compile the
main program.
When Makefile is used, the computer will check to see if

definearray2.c or nrutil.o have been changed since the last
time the target, definearray2, was created. If not, Makefile
will say that definearray2 is up to date and will not recompile
it.
-------------- SORTING EXAMPLE USING NR UTILITIES ---------------
To further illustrate the use of the Numerical Recipes routines,

here is an example program that generates a list of random numbers,
sorts them using the NR function piksrt, and then prints out
the sorted list.
(sortrand.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#include "nrutil.c"
#define NPTS 100
void piksrt(int n, float arr[]);
int main()
{
float *x;
int i, j;
x = vector(1,NPTS);

for (i=1; i<=NPTS; i++)
x[i] = (float)rand()/(float)(RAND_MAX+1);
piksrt(NPTS,x);
for (i=0; i<NPTS/10; i++) {
for (j=1; j<=10; j++) printf("%7.4f ",x[10*i+j]);
printf("\n");
}
free_vector(x,1,NPTS);
return 0;
}
void piksrt(int n, float arr[])

/* sorts an array arr[1,n] into ascending order by straight insertion.
n is input; arr is replaced on output by its sorted rearrangement
WARNING: Very slow for large n, use only for n < 50 or so */
{
int i, j;
float a;
for (j=2; j<=n; j++) {
a = arr[j];
i = j - 1;
while (i > 0 && arr[i] > a) {
arr[i+1] = arr[i];
i--;
}
arr[i+1] = a;
}
}
It is often the case that we have functions that we will want to

use in more than one program. In this case, we can save them individually
or within a subroutine library. For example, we can save piksrt
as piksrt.c:
(piksrt.c)
void piksrt(int n, float arr[])
/* sorts an array arr[1,n] into ascending order by straight insertion.
n is input; arr is replaced on output by its sorted rearrangement
WARNING: Very slow for large n, use only for n < 50 or so */
{
int i, j;
float a;
for (j=2; j<=n; j++) {
a = arr[j];
i = j - 1;
while (i > 0 && arr[i] > a) {
arr[i+1] = arr[i];
i--;
}
arr[i+1] = a;
}
}
and then our main program becomes:
(sortrand2.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#include "nrutil.c"
#include "piksrt.c"
#define NPTS 100
int main()
{
float *x;
int i, j;
x = vector(1,NPTS);

for (i=1; i<=NPTS; i++)
x[i] = (float)rand()/(float)(RAND_MAX+1);
piksrt(NPTS,x);
for (i=0; i<NPTS/10; i++) {

for (j=1; j<=10; j++) printf("%7.4f ",x[10*i+j]);
printf("\n");
}
free_vector(x,1,NPTS);
return 0;
}
Notice that we include piksrt.c in the list at the top of the

program. If the code to be included is within the same directory
as the main program, we put it in quotes rather than the < >.
For simplicity in presenting this example, we have continued to

use the somewhat inefficient method of including nrutil.c and
piksrt.c at the start of the program. As discussed above, a
better approach for larger programs is to include *.h files
instead and then link to the function object files during
compilation by using a Makefile. In this case we would have
to create a piksrt.h file that would give the function prototypes
for the functions contained in piksrt.c (in this case there is
just one function in piksrt.c but more generally there might
be many functions).
ASSIGNMENT C13
Modify the sortrand program to return the median of a user-specified

number of random numbers. Do the median computation in the form of
a function that returns the median value, but does NOT resort the
input array in the process. Hint: Within your median-computing
function, copy the input array to another array before calling piksrt.
Design your function for x[1, ....., n], not x[0, 1, ... n-1]. This
means that you will want to use the NR vector function to define the
temporary array for input into piksrt.
------------------ EXAMPLE USING STATIC VARIABLES ------------------

A common convention in geophysics is to name an instrument site with
a short ascii string. In seismology, for example, station names are
usually designated with 3 to 4 character names. Southern California
GPS sites are usually identified with 4 character names.
Often data products are labeled by the station name, without including
information about the station, such as its location. Data processing
programs will often require this information. Thus, there is frequently
a need for a computer routine that will retrieve information about
a station, given the station name. One could hardwire this information
into the program with a series of if statements, but this would become
very cumbersome for large numbers of stations and would limit the
flexibility and portability of the code. A better approach is to
save the station information in a file and have the computer read from
the file to access the information when necessary. However, file
I/O is relatively slow so we won't want to open, read, and close the
file every time we need to determine a station location. It would
be much faster to read the station information file once and then
save the information during the time that the program is running.
For portability, ideally all of this overhead would be performed
in a function that we could use in many programs without having
to worry about the format of the station file or the size of the
array that are required to store it.
In order to do this, we need to retain the values of certain

variables within the function for subsequent calls.
Here is an example that will return station coordinates for

some of the GSN (Global Seismic Network) stations.
(testgetstat.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int getstat(char stname[], float *slat, float *slon, float *sdep);
int main()
{
char stname[5];
float slat, slon, selev;
while (1) {
printf("Enter station name \n");
scanf("%s",stname);
if (getstat(stname, &slat, &slon, &selev) == 0)

printf("lat, lon, dep = %f %f %f \n",slat,slon,selev);
else
printf("Station not found \n");
}
return 0;
}
/* getstat returns station coordinates for given station name

Upon first call, reads from file (STFILE) listing station
coordinates. THIS FILE MUST BE IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER.
Inputs: stname = station name

Returns: slat = station latitude (degrees)
slon = station longitude (degrees)
selev = station elevation (km)
*/
#define STFILE "stlist.gsn"
#define NMAX 5000
int getstat(char stname[], float *slat, float *slon, float *sdep)
{
static int firstcall=1, nsta=0;
static char stlist[NMAX][5];
static float stlat[NMAX], stlon[NMAX], stdep[NMAX];
int i, i1, i2, iter, itest;
FILE *fp1;
if (firstcall){
firstcall = 0;
printf("Reading station file: %s \n",STFILE);
fp1 = fopen(STFILE,"r");
if (fp1 == NULL) {
printf("***Can't open file: STFILE \n");
return 1;
}
for (i=0; i<NMAX; i++) {
if (fscanf(fp1, "%s %f %f %f", &stlist[i][0], &stlat[i],

&stlon[i], &stdep[i]) == EOF) break;
stdep[i] = stdep[i] / 1000.0; /* convert to km */
nsta = i;
}
fclose(fp1);
printf("Number of stations = %d \n",nsta+1);
}
i1 = 0;
i2 = nsta;
for (iter=0; iter<15; iter++){
i = (i1+i2)/2;
itest = strcmp(stname, &stlist[i][0]);
if (itest == 0) {
*slat = stlat[i];
*slon = stlon[i];
*sdep = stdep[i];
return 0;
}
else if (i1 == i2) break;
else if (itest < 0)
i2 = i - 1;
else
i1 = i + 1;
}
printf("***Station not found: %s \n",stname);
*slat = -999.0;
*slon = -999.0;
*sdep = -999.0;
return 1;
}
The main program is a short driver program that enables us to test

that the getstat function is working properly. It is always a good
idea to use little programs like this to test functions that are
being developed, BEFORE using the functions in larger programs.
The getstat function itself has the form:
int getstat(char stname[], float *slat, float *slon, float *sdep)
Note that we pass slat, slon and sdep as pointers to the function
because we want to pass these values back to the main program.
Inside the function, we first define
static int firstcall=1, nsta=0;

static char stlist[NMAX][5];
static float stlat[NMAX], stlon[NMAX], stdep[NMAX];
These are variables that are used only within the function. The
"static" prefix means that the values of these variables will be
preserved for subsequent calls to the function. This is necessary
in our case because we want to read the table of station locations
once (during the first call to the function) and then save the
table values for all additional calls to the function. If we left
out the static, then the values would not be preserved and the
function would not work properly. Note that the static prefix
also causes the initialization of firstcall and nsta to apply only
to the first time that the function is called.
We use the integer variable "firstcall" to keep track of whether

this is the first time the function is called or a subsequent
call. firstcall=1 for the first call and thus
if (firstcall){
is true. Within the if condition, however, we immediately set

firstcall to 0 so that the if condition will not be true upon
subsequent calls.
Within the if condition for the first call, we go ahead and

open and read the contents of the station file. The file has
the form:
AAE 9.02920 38.76560 2442

AAK 42.63900 74.49400 1645
ABKT 37.93040 58.11890 678
ADK 51.88370 -176.68440 116
AFI -13.90930 -171.77730 706
ALE 82.50330 -62.35000 60
ALQ 34.94620 -106.45670 1840
ANMO 34.94620 -106.45670 1840
ANTO 39.86890 32.79359 883
AQU 42.35389 13.40500 720
We read the file inside a loop over the index i using

fscanf(fp1, "%s %f %f %f", &stlist[i][0], &stlat[i], &stlon[i], &stdep[i])
The tricky part of this is reading the station names, which are contained
in the array stlist[5000][5]. The first index in this two-dimensional
array is i; the second is for the characters within the string containing
the station names. Recall that when we use fscanf (or scanf) that the
input variables are referenced by pointer; this is why we put & in front
of their names. Arrays are referenced by a pointer to their first element.
&stlist[i][0] is the pointer to the first character in the station name
for the i-th line of the file (all of the arrays in this program start
with 0, not 1).
Note that [] has precedence over & so that this expression means
&(stlist[i][0]) and not (&stlist[i])[0].
In functions like this, I like to print out information about the

file that is being read during the first call. This reminds the
user of the program about what is being done and it helpful in case
there is a problem or error later in the program.
Question for students: Why is nsta+1 output for the number of stations,
rather than simply nsta?
The next part of the function searches for the target station name
from the list of stations. For maximum efficiency this search takes
advantage of the fact that the stations in the station file are
arranged in alphabetical order. i1 and i2 are indices that are
designed to bracket the target station in the list. Initially, they
are set to 0 and nsta, the first and last station indices. Next,
i is set to a point halfway between i1 and i2. The station in the
station list at i is compared to the target station. If they are
the same, then we can set the return variables. If the stlist
station is greater than the target station (later in the alphabet),
then i2 is set to i-1. If the stlist station is less than the
target station, then i1 is set to i+1. We iterate using this procedure
15 times to narrow in on the station name. (2^15 must be greater
than NMAX to make sure we do enough iterations)
If we don't find the target stname in the station list, then we

print out a warning message. We also set the station coordinates
to numbers that are unlikely to be confused with real station
locations in case the user of the function does not notice the
warning message (or chooses to ignore it!).
ASSIGNMENT C14
Modify getstat to find the nearest station to a given (lat,lon) point

and return the station name and its coordinates. You can get the
stlist.gsn file via anonymous ftp at mahi.ucsd.edu/pub/239. Name your
new function nearstat and also include a testnearstat driver program to
test the operation of the function. To find the nearest station, you
will need to be able to compute the distance between two points on
a sphere. Here is a function to help you do this:
/*
sph_dist computes angular separation of two points on sphere
Inputs: flat1 = latitude of first point (degrees)
flon1 = longitude of first point (degrees)
flat2 = latitude of second point (degrees)
flon2 = longitude of second point (degrees)
Returns: del = angular separation between points (degrees)
Note: This routine is inaccurate for del less than about 0.5 degrees.
For greater accuracy, perform a separate calculation for close
ranges using Cartesian geometry.
Requires: <math.h>
*/
float sph_dist(float flat1, float flon1, float flat2, float flon2)

{
float pi=3.141592654, raddeg, theta1, theta2, phi1, phi2, ang, del;
raddeg =pi/180.0;
theta1 = (90.-flat1)*raddeg;
theta2 = (90.-flat2)*raddeg;
phi1 = flon1*raddeg;
phi2 = flon2*raddeg;
ang = acos(sin(theta1)*sin(theta2)*cos(phi2-phi1)+cos(theta1)*cos(theta2));
del = ang/raddeg;
return del;
}
Don't bother to do the separate calculation for small values of del.
The nearstat function should be of the form:
int nearstat(float plat, float plon, char stname[], float *slat,

float *slon, float *sdep);
where plat and plon are the coordinates going into the function and
stname, slat, slon and sdep are passed back from the function to
the main program. HINT: Remember to use the string copy function,
strcpy, to set stname once you have found the index for the closest
station.
------------------- STRUCTURES AND COMPLEX NUMBERS ------------------
Unlike FORTRAN or MATLAB, C provides no direct method for defining

and manipulating complex numbers. From a scientific programming
perspective, this is a serious problem because complex numbers
are essential for many problems. Fortunately, it is possible to
get around this limitation in C by implementing user-defined functions
that can handle complex arithmetic. Typically, these take advantage
of a C feature, termed a structure, that we have not discussed so far.
A structure in C is a user-defined array of data elements that may,

or may not, be of the same data type. Suppose, for example, we
wanted to set up a data base containing information (name, age,
height, weight) about 5 different people. Here is a program that
uses a structure to read in this information and print the name
of the lightest person:
(namebase.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#define NAMELENGTH 12
#define NMAX 5
int main()
{
typedef struct { char name[NAMELENGTH];
int age;
float height, weight;
} person_type;
person_type students[NMAX];
int i,ii;
float weightmin;
for (i=0; i<NMAX; i++){

printf("Enter first name, age, height, weight (e.g., Bob 27 69 183) \n");
scanf("%s %d %f %f", &students[i].name,
&students[i].age,
&students[i].height,
&students[i].weight );
}
ii=0;
weightmin=999.0;
if (students[i].weight < weightmin) {
weightmin = students[i].weight;
ii = i;
}
}
printf("%s is the lightest student \n",students[ii].name);
return 0;
The statement:

int age;
} person_type;
defines a data structure that can be used to name a variable later

in the program. The contents are a string (of length NAMELENGTH),
an integer for the age, a float for the height, and a float for
the weight. These contents are termed the "members" of the
structure.
In this example, the structure is given the name "person_type"

which is NOT a variable name. Rather it is a name that can later
to used to define the actual variable name(s) that will have this
structure. The next line creates the array students that has this
structure:
person_type students[NMAX];
In this line, person_type acts just like the int or float
statements that we are used to. It can be used to define more
than one variable name and these variables do not need to be
arrays. Here is another example of this:
person_type grads[NMAX], undergrads[NMAX], teacher;
The members of the structure are referenced by appending

.member to the name, where member refers to the specific
member defined in the structure. So, for example, student[1].age
is the age of student[1]. Note that the array index goes
BEFORE the .member, not after. The dot operator is also sometimes
called the structure member operator or member access operator.
This example does not really make obvious the advantages of

a structure because we could easily have maintained separate
arrays for name, age, height and weight. A clearer advantage of
the structure approach is that we can reassign all of the
members with a single statement, i.e., we can say:
students[3] = students[2];
rather than having to say:
students[3].name = students[2].name;
students[3].age = students[2].age;
etc.
However, we cannot compare structures as in the statement:
if (students[3] == students[2]) { /* ILLEGAL!! */
Structures can be used to define function types and as function

arguments. To illustrate this, here is the above program
implemented with two functions:
(namebase2.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#define NAMELENGTH 12
#define NMAX 5

int age;
} person_type;
int getpeople(person_type students[NMAX]);

person_type findlightest(person_type students[NMAX]);
int main()
{
person_type students[NMAX], lightstudent;
getpeople(students);
lightstudent = findlightest(students);
printf("%s is the lightest student \n", lightstudent.name );
return 0;
}
int getpeople(person_type students[NMAX])

{
int i;
printf("Enter first name, age, height, weight (e.g., Bob 27 69 183) \n");
scanf("%s %d %f %f", &students[i].name,
&students[i].age,
&students[i].height,
&students[i].weight );
}
return 0;
}
person_type findlightest(person_type students[NMAX])

{
int i,ii;
float weightmin=999.0;
if (students[i].weight < weightmin) {
weightmin = students[i].weight;
ii = i;
}
}
return students[ii];
}
Note that structures are passed to functions by value (just like

arrays in C) so that there is no need to worry about pointers
when dealing with structures and functions.
OK, we are now ready to consider how to handle complex numbers in C.

We will use the public-domain set of functions provided in Numerical
Recipes. These are contained in the files complex.h and complex.c
which you can obtain via anonymous ftp to mahi.ucsd.edu/pub/239
or at the class web site. They have the form:
typedef struct FCOMPLEX {float r,i;} fcomplex;
fcomplex Cadd(fcomplex a, fcomplex b);

returns the complex sum of two complex numbers
fcomplex Csub(fcomplex a, fcomplex b);

returns the complex difference of two complex numbers
fcomplex Cmul(fcomplex a, fcomplex b);

returns the complex product of two complex numbers
fcomplex Complex(float re, float im);

returns a complex number with specified real and imaginary parts
fcomplex Conjg(fcomplex z);

returns the complex conjugate of a complex number
fcomplex Cdiv(fcomplex a, fcomplex b);

returns the complex quotient of two complex numbers
float Cabs(fcomplex z);

returns the real absolute value (modulus) of a complex number
fcomplex Csqrt(fcomplex z);

returns the complex square root of a complex number
fcomplex RCmul(float x, fcomplex a);

returns the complex product of a real number and a complex number
Here is a simple program that inputs two complex numbers and

outputs their product:
(complexmult.c)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
#include "complex.c"
int main()
{
fcomplex a, b, c;
float x, y, cabs;
printf("Enter 1st complex number (real + imag) \n");
scanf("%f %f", &x, &y);
a = Complex(x, y);
printf("Enter 2nd complex number (real + imag) \n");
scanf("%f %f",&b.r, &b.i);
c = Cmul(a, b);
cabs = Cabs(c);
printf("product = (%f, %f), cabs = %f \n", c.r, c.i, cabs);
return 0;
}
Note that the fcomplex structure is defined within complex.c

so it does not appear in the program. Within the program,
the statement
fcomplex a, b, c;
defines a, b and c as complex. The real and imaginary members

of b, for example, can then be accessed as b.r and b.i. Note
that the dot operator is used to directly input the second
complex number.
These routines enable complex numbers to be manipulated almost

as easily as they are in FORTRAN or C. Perhaps the biggest
remaining disadvantage of C in this respect is that the code
is less readable than the case when the arithmetic operators
(+, -, *, /) can be used directly.
ASSIGNMENT C15
Write a complex function called Cexp to add to the complex.c

library that computes the complex exponential. Here is the
formula
e^z = e^(x+iy) = e^x e^(iy) = (e^x cos y) + i (e^x sin y)
which you will have to adapt for your function. Include a

driver program to test your function for selected input values.
Make sure that your code gets the correct answer for these
examples:
exp( 1.1 + 2.3i) = -2.002 + 2.240i

exp( 0.0 + 1.2i) = 0.362 + 0.932i
exp(-0.5 + 0.0i) = 0.607 + 0.000i

C

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C PROGRAMMING

Why not C++?

Why not FORTRAN?

What if I already know C?

What C textbook would you recommend?

Although I will try to make these notes self-contained and provide

To standardize things, I am going to assume that everyone has access

--------------------------- HELLO WORLD -------------------------------------

The best way to learn a computer language is to start writing short

Let's examine this line by line:

EVERY C PROGRAM THAT WE WRITE IN THIS CLASS WILL NEED <stdio.h>

Note that this line does NOT end in a semi-colon.

This matches my convention except that "void" is used to explicitly specify

---------------- COMPILING AND RUNNING C PROGRAMS ----------------------

Here is a simple C program to multiply 2 and 3:

Notice that we have included some comment lines in this example.

After compiling, the result of running this program is:

This program uses three variables: a, b, and c. All variables in C must

(Alternatively, these variables could have been defined using

int a=2, b=3, c;

%f print as floating point (real) number

%c print single character

%i is sometimes used as an integer format but I don't recommend it

--------------- MAKING A TRIG TABLE USING A FOR STATEMENT --------------

Here is an example program that generates a table of trig functions:

cc -lm trigtable.c -o trigtable

If you just enter "make trigtable" or "cc trigtable.c -o trigtable" you

for (theta=0.0; theta<89.5; theta=theta+1.0){

An alternative way to handle this loop is to use a "while" statement:

This is a little less natural for this example, however.

By convention, symbolic constant names are written in upper case

--------------- IF STATEMENTS + HOW TO FIND MAX(A,B) ----------------

Suppose we want to assign z to the maximum of x and y. There is

C FORTRAN MATLAB meaning

These operators can be combined to make complex tests.e.g,

if ( (a > b && c <= 0 ) || d = 0) z == a;

There is, of course, an order of operations for these things

WARNING: If you use = instead of == in a conditional statement

for (i=0; i<=10 && error != -1; i=i+1) { }

Now, let's return to the example for finding the maximum.

Now z is only assigned once. Although this takes more lines,

More generally the if-else construction has the form:

The program checks each condition in turn. As soon as one is

Our use of "if-else" to find the maximum has an alternative

? is called a ternary operator. z is assigned to x or y

expr1 ? expr2 : expr3

expr1 is evaluated first. If it is true (non-zero) then

KR has a cute example of this:

printf("You have %d items%s.\n", n, n==1 ? "" : "s");

Finally, you may need to compute max(x,y) many times in

#define MAX(A,B) ( (A) > (B) ? (A) : (B) )

As in the DEGRAD example above, this statement goes at the

will be replaced by the line

z = ( (x+y) > (x-y) ? (x+y) : (x-y) )

------------------ INPUT USING KEYBOARD --------------

So far all of our example programs have run without prompting

printf("Enter two integers \n");

The formats are identical to those used in printf, in this case

(Here I must add an additional warning. Do NOT include any

scanf("%d %d ", &a, &b); /* THIS WILL NOT WORK PROPERLY!!! */

Here is an example of a complete program that multiplies two

Running this program, we have: