C is a general-purpose programming language. It was created in the 1970s by Dennis Ritchie and remains very widely used and influential. By design, C's features cleanly reflect the capabilities of the targeted CPUs. It has found lasting use in operating systems code, device drivers, and protocol stacks, but its use in application software has been decreasing. C is commonly used on computer architectures that range from the largest supercomputers to the smallest microcontrollers and embedded systems. Wikipedia
Created Year: 1972Designed by: Dennis M. Ritchie
Developed by: American National Standards Institute • Bell Labs • Dennis M. Ritchie • International Organization for Standardization • Ken Thompson
Operating systems: Microsoft Windows • Unix-like operating system
Aliases: C programming language
File extensions: c, h
Wikidata: Q15777
Influenced: Alef • AMPL • AWK • Ballerina • BitC • C++ • C-- • C shell • C3 • Chaos • Chapel • Charm • Cilk • Claire • Concurrent C • Crystal • Cyclone • C# • D • eC • EventScripts • FreeBASIC • GNU Awk • Go • Handel-C • HolyC • Java • JavaScript • JS++ • Julia • Limbo • Linden Scripting Language • LPC • Maya Embedded Language • MIVA Script • Mojo • Monkey X • NCL • nesC • Newsqueak • Next Byte Codes • Not eXactly C • Not Quite C • Objective-C • Odin • Perl • PHP • Pike • Processing • Python • Ratfor • Ring • S • Scol • Seed7 • SolidThinking Embed • Swift (parallel scripting language) • THINK C • Vala • Whiley • Wolfram Language • Zig • ZPL
Influenced by: ALGOL • assembly language • B • BCPL • CPL • Fortran • PL/I
Programming paradigms: imperative programming • procedural programming • structured programming
Language types: compiled language • imperative programming language • procedural programming language • structured programming language
C Influence Network
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Hello World in C
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
printf("Hello World\n");
}
Free C books, articles, documentation
- 256-Color VGA Programming in C - David Brackeen
- A Tutorial on Pointers and Arrays in C - Ted Jensen (PDF) (:card_file_box: archived)
- Algorithms Design (in C) - Paulo Feofiloff (HTML)
- Bare-metal programming for ARM - Daniels Umanovskis (PDF)
- Beej's Guide to C Programming - Brian "Beej Jorgensen" Hall (HTML, PDF) (CC BY-NC-ND)
- Beej's Guide to the GNU Debugger (GDB) - Brian "Beej Jorgensen" Hall (HTML) (CC BY-NC-ND)
- Build Your Own Lisp - Daniel Holden
- Build Your Own Redis with C/C++ - build-your-own.org (HTML) (:construction: in process)
- C Elements of Style - Steve Oualline
- C for Python Programmers - Carl Burch
- C Handbook - Flavio Copes (HTML, PDF)
- C Internals - Rajeev Kumar (HTML)
- C Notes for Professionals - Compiled from StackOverflow Documentation (PDF)
- C Programming - Wikibooks
- C Programming Boot Camp - Paul Gribble
- C Programming Tutorial - Tutorials Point (HTML, PDF)
- Coursebook - B. Venkatesh, L. Angrave, et al.
- Deep C
- Essential C - Nick Parlante (PDF)
- Essential C - Krzysztof Kowalczyk, StackOverflow Contributors
- Everything you need to know about pointers in C - Peter Hosey
- Functional C (1997) - Pieter H. Hartel, Henk Muller (PDF)
- Hashing - Prakash Hegade
- Introduction to Programming and Data Structures in C - CodeAhoy (HTML)
- Learn to Code With C - The MagPi Essentials (PDF)
- Learning GNU C - Ciaran O’Riordan (PDF)
- Let us C - Yashavant Kanetkar (PDF)
- Modeling with Data - Ben Klemens (PDF)
- Modern C - Jens Gustedt (PDF)
- Object-Oriented Programming With ANSI-C (PDF)
- Programming in C - Bharat Kinariwala & Tep Dobry
- Programming in C - Kishori Mundargi
- Structures and C - Prakash Hegade
- The Basics of C Programming - Marshall Brain (PDF)
- The C book - Mike Banahan, Declan Brady, Mark Doran (PDF, HTML)
- The C Programming Language Handbook - Flavio Copes (PDF, EPUB, Kindle) (email address requested)
- The Current C Programming Language Standard – ISO/IEC 9899:2018 (C17/C18), Draft - Open Standards Org - www.open-std.org (PDF) (:card_file_box: archived)
- The GNU C Programming Tutorial - Mark Burgess, Ron Hale-Evans (PDF)
- The GNU C Reference Manual - Trevis Rothwell, James Youngman (HTML) (PDF)
- The little book about OS development - Erik Helin, Adam Renberg
- The New C Standard - An Economic and Cultural commentary (2009) - Derek M. Jones (PDF)
- TONC GBA Programming - Game Boy Advance Development
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Latest data update: 2025-06-22