Library and IDE in C Language

In this article, I’m gonna give a brief introduction to Library and IDE in C Programming Language. Please read my previous article where we discussed the History of C Programming Language. 

In this post I will discuss C Libraries and IDE in detail, so keep reading this post.

Before doing programming in C, we need to understand two things. They are as follows:

let’s understand both of the important perspect of C Programs one by one in detail.

Library in C Language

We will discuss each of the perspective of the C Libraries in detail with some Questions which are frequently asked and searched by people.

What is library in C language?

In general, to understand it in simple words, we can say that to write a program, variables and methods are very important.

Methods are also called functions. So, what is a library means, to develop our c applications or programs, so many predefined things are already available? 

Predefined things mean variables and functions only. 

Here, a library is a collection of header files or you can C library is a collection of header files where each header file contains some predefined functions and methods.

What is a header file and why they divided the C library into header files?

Consider in our computer, why we are dividing the hard disk into a number of drives and in each drive why we are creating different, different folders and why we are not placing the complete information into a single place or in a single drive.

Why we are creating a number of folders means for easy access that we can understand.

Folder creation means the related information we are always placing into a particular folder. 

So, whenever a requirement comes, we can directly access that particular folder only. That is an easy access policy.

In the same way, in a library also, so many predefined things are available and so many predefined functions and predefined variables are available in the C language. 

All these are divided into related groups called header files in C Language.

What are header files available in C Language?

Some of the header files available in C Language are as follows:

Stdio.h

stdio stands for standard input/output header file. It contains some of the standard functions. 

In order to  print message on the console we can use the predefined printf() function. 

we don’t need to write the code once again, the printf function is already ready. 

If I just want to print a message on the output console from my program. So, directly I can use the printf function. 

If I want to read something, the scanf() function is available in stdio.h header file.

Conio.h

Conio.h starnd for Console input/output header file. This header file contains console-related functions. 

For example, if I want to clear the console, clrscr() predefined function is available. If I want to read a character from the console, then have provided getch() predefined function.

String.h

TThis header file  contains string manipulation methods.

For example, if we want to find the length of a string, then you can use the predefined strlen() function and if we want to reverse the character of a string, then you can use the strren() function.

Graphics.h

With the programming part, C Language also has graphics related functionality, which is predefined in graphics.h header file. 

Some 2D games we can develop using c programming also. 

For example, if we want to set the color, setcolor() function  can be used and if we want to set the background color, setbkcolor predefined functions can be used. 

There are so many functions available in the Graphics header file.

Math.h

This header file provides functions and variables to perform mathamatical operations. 

For example, in order to generate a random number, predefined rand() function is used  and to calculate the power of a number, pow() function is used.

Dos.h

This header file contains functions that we can use to access operating system information. 

Dos stands for disk operating system. 

Operating system-related information if you want to access from your c program, then you can go for dos.h header file. 

For example, to get the date, getdate function can be used and to get the time, gettime predefined function is used.

So, a header files ares a collection of related predefined functions and a c library is a collection of predefined header files.

How many libraries are in C?

Total 53 open-source libraries are available in C programming language

IDE (Integrated Development Environment)

We discuss the IDE with  the series of Questions, because Questioning is the best approach of Expatiation. so let’s start understanding IDE.

What is IDE?

IDE stands for integrated Development Environment. IDE is basically the Computer Environment for hard coding programs in computer languages.

There are lot of IDEs available in the market. The working of all IDE are same. We can select any of them for development.

Like for C programming we can use Visual Studio Code, Codeblock, Turboo C++, and more.

We can also use online web tools which are provide us Online IDE on cloud.

IDEs are development interface to create programs. They are basically provide an interface to program for creating & executing program in Computer.

IDEs increase programmer productivity by combining common activities of writing software into a single application:

• Editing source code
• Building executable
• Debugging

Editing Source Code

Writing code is the important part of developing any Website or application. 

We start coding with the blank page and gradually it becomes large code file by writing hard codes of each of modules. 

so the functionality of IDE to provide live testing, syntax highlighting and autocomplete.

See the below Image for better understanding.

Syntax highlighting makes code easier to read by visually clarifying different elements of language syntax.

Building Executable

We all know that before running any of the program in C, Java, etc. , the source code must be transformed into an executable file like in C we get .exe file.

The transformation of source code into executable file is called compilation.

Once compiled, the program can be run from the terminal.

This compilation process is necessary for every program, so why not have the IDE do it for us? IDEs provide automated build processes for languages, so the act of compiling and executing code is abstracted away.

See the below Image for better understanding.

Debugging

No programmer avoids writing bugs and programs with errors.

IDEs provide debugging tools that allow programmers to examine different variables and inspect their code in a deliberate way.

IDEs also provide hints while coding to prevent errors before compilation.

People also ask

What is Source code?

In term of programming, Source code is the special text written by following syntax rules. All Moder IDEs like VS Code provide extensions of Programming syntax so that programmer has no headache of following syntax too much. IDE automatically suggest some syntax like Indentation, termination, and, more.

What is IDE with example?

IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment, used to write source code in easy & accurate way. NetBeans, Eclipse, IntelliJ, and Visual Studio, etc are some Popular used IDE for Development.

What is the purpose of IDE?

The ultimate purpose of IDE to provide environment of Writing source code, with some additonal features like colourisation of code, Just from one module to another, and more.

What is an IDE vs text editor?

The Difference between IDE & Text Editor is that, The IDE provide Professional environment of programming with special features like Indentation, structured code development, code color, and more, whereas Text editor is a normal & simple text writing tool which is used to write simple text without any additional features.

All Operating Systems (OS) comes with the default system Text editor, but IDE we have to install manually.

Conclusion

This is all about Library and IDE in C Language. if you want Some Posts about Individual IDE’s then comment me for that, otherwise I will publish a Detailed Post of Visual Studio Code.

I personally use VS code IDE for Development because of its easy to use features.

I hope you have got valuable content from this post.

Thanks for Visit!

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