Foundations of C Programming

This unit develops foundational knowledge and hands-on skills in the C programming language, covering syntax, data types, control flow, functions, arrays, pointers, memory management, I/O, and program modularization. It establishes the essential tools and practices students will build on in later units to design, implement, and maintain C applications.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze the development environment, toolchain, and runtime model for C programs and demonstrate use of a terminal or IDE to compile, link, and execute single- and multi-file projects
• Apply C syntax, primitive and derived data types, operators, control structures, and functions to write correct programs that perform console and character I/O
• Demonstrate pointer usage, pointer-array relationships, and dynamic memory allocation/deallocation to manage data storage and avoid common pointer errors
• Evaluate program requirements and implement sequential file access, directory operations, time retrieval, and multi-module organization to create maintainable C applications