Course info

Module Description

This module will provide an introduction to fundamental concepts of computer programming in the C language, which is particularly relevant to programming embedded systems and for electronic engineers.

Module Aims

After completing this module, students will be expected to be able to:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of the basic principles and concepts that underlie the procedural programming model.

2. Explain and make use of high-level programming language features that support control, data and procedural abstraction.

3. Analyse and explain the behaviour of simple programs that incorporate standard control structures, parameterised functions, arrays, structures and I/O.

4. Implement, test and debug simple programs that use the features listed above.

 

Outline Syllabus

• Underlying principles of procedural programming

• The imperative programming model; state, sequentiality and destructive assignment.

• Abstraction: separating internal and external views; control, data and procedural abstraction.

• A model of memory: variables; static and dynamic memory; the execution stack

• Programming in a high-level procedural language

• Identifiers and keywords

• Expressions and types: well-typed expressions; operator precedence and expression evaluation

• Statements and control flow: simple, compound and control statements; the assignment statement; selection and repetition

• Functions: definition, and call; local variables, scope and existence; parameters, formal and actual parameters, parameter passing

• Lists and dictionaries: declaration and initialisation; accessing elements

• Input and output: console and file I/O