Standard Library Functions (Part - 2), C Programming Interview Questions | Placement Papers - Technical & HR Questions - Interview Preparation PDF Download

6. How do I determine whether a character is numeric, alphabetic, and so on?

The header file ctype.h defines various functions for determining what class a character belongs to. These consist of the following functions:

There are three very good reasons for calling these macros instead of writing your own tests for character classes. They are pretty much the same reasons for using standard library functions in the first place. First, these macros are fast. Because they are generally implemented as a table lookup with some bit-masking magic, even a relatively complicated test can be performed much faster than an actual comparison of the value of the character.

Second, these macros are correct. It's all too easy to make an error in logic or typing and include a wrong character (or exclude a right one) from a test.

Third, these macros are portable. Believe it or not, not everyone uses the same ASCII character set with PC extensions. You might not care today, but when you discover that your next computer uses Unicode rather than ASCII, you'll be glad you wrote code that didn't assume the values of characters in the character set.

The header file ctype.h also defines two functions to convert characters between upper- and lowercase alphabetics. These are toupper() and tolower(). The behavior of toupper() and tolower() is undefined if their arguments are not lower- and uppercase alphabetic characters, respectively, so you must remember to check using islower() and isupper() before calling toupper() and tolower().

7. What is a "locale"?

A locale is a description of certain conventions your program might be expected to follow under certain circumstances. It's mostly helpful to internationalize your program.

If you were going to print an amount of money, would you always use a dollar sign? Not if your program was going to run in the United Kingdom; there, you'd use a pound sign. In some countries, the currency symbol goes before the number; in some, it goes after. Where does the sign go for a negative number? How about the decimal point? A number that would be printed 1,234.56 in the United States should appear as 1.234,56 in some other countries. Same value, different convention. How are times and dates displayed? The only short answer is, differently. These are some of the technical reasons why some programmers whose programs have to run all over the world have so many headaches.

Good news: Some of the differences have been standardized. C compilers support different "locales," different conventions for how a program acts in different places. For example, the strcoll (string collate) function is like the simpler strcmp, but it reflects how different countries and languages sort and order (collate) string values. The setlocale and localeconv functions provide this support.

Bad news: There's no standardized list of interesting locales. The only one your compiler is guaranteed to support is the "C" locale, which is a generic, American English convention that works best with ASCII characters between 32 and 127. Even so, if you need to get code that looks right, no matter where around the world it will run, thinking in terms of locales is a good first step. (Getting several locales your compiler supports, or getting your compiler to accept locales you define, is a good second step.)

8. Is there a way to jump out of a function or functions?

The standard library functions setjmp() and longjmp() are used to provide a goto that can jump out of a function or functions, in the rare cases in which this action is useful. To correctly use setjmp() andlongjmp(), you must apply several conditions.

You must #include the header file setjmp.h. This file provides the prototypes for setjmp() and longjmp(), and it defines the type jmp_buf. You need a variable of type jmp_buf to pass as an argument to both setjmp() and longjmp(). This variable will contain the information needed to make the jump occur.

You must call setjmp() to initialize the jmp_buf variable. If setjmp() returns 0, you have just initialized thejmp_buf. If setjmp() returns anything else, your program just jumped to that point via a call to longjmp(). In that case, the return value is whatever your program passed to longjmp().

Conceptually, longjmp() works as if when it is called, the currently executing function returns. Then the function that called it returns, and so on, until the function containing the call to setjmp() is executing. Then execution jumps to where setjmp() was called from, and execution continues from the return of setjmp(), but with the return value of setjmp() set to whatever argument was passed to longjmp(). In other words, if function f() calls setjmp() and later calls function g(), and function g() calls function h(), which callslongjmp(), the program behaves as if h() returned immediately, then g() returned immediately, then f()executed a goto back to the setjmp() call.

What this means is that for a call to longjmp() to work properly, the program must already have calledsetjmp() and must not have returned from the function that called setjmp(). If these conditions are not fulfilled, the operation of longjmp() is undefined (meaning your program will probably crash). The program The below program illustrates the use of setjmp() and longjmp(). It is obviously contrived, because it would be simpler to write this program without using setjmp() and longjmp(). In general, when you are tempted to use setjmp() and longjmp(), try to find a way to write the program without them, because they are easy to misuse and can make a program difficult to read and maintain.

/* An example of using setjmp() and longjmp(). */
#include        <setjmp.h>
#include        <stdio.h>
#include        <string.h>
#include        <stdlib.h>
#define RETRY_PROCESS 1
#define QUIT_PROCESS  2
jmp_buf env;
int nitems;
int procItem()
{
    char    buf[256];
    if (gets(buf) && strcmp(buf, "done")) 
    {
        if (strcmp(buf, "quit") == 0)
                longjmp(env, QUIT_PROCESS);
        if (strcmp(buf, "restart") == 0)
                longjmp(env, RETRY_PROCESS);
        nitems++;
        return 1;
    }
    return 0;
}
void process()
{
    printf("Enter items, followed by 'done'.\n");
    printf("At any time, you can type 'quit' to exit\n");
    printf("or 'restart' to start over again\n");
    nitems = 0;
    while (procItem());
}
void main()
{
    for ( ; ; ) 
    {
        switch (setjmp(env)) 
        {
            case 0:
            case RETRY_PROCESS:
                    process();
                    printf("You typed in %d items.\n",
                            nitems);
                    break;
            case QUIT_PROCESS:
            default:
                    exit(0);
        }
    }
}

9. What's a signal? What do I use signals for?

A signal is an exceptional condition that occurs during the execution of your program. It might be the result of an error in your program, such as a reference to an illegal address in memory; or an error in your program's data, such as a floating-point divided by 0; or an outside event, such as the user's pressing Ctrl-Break. The standard library function signal() enables you to specify what action is to be taken on one of these exceptional conditions (a function that performs that action is called a "signal handler"). The prototype for signal() is

#include <signal.h>

void (*signal(int num, void (*func)(int)))(int);

which is just about the most complicated declaration you'll see in the C standard library. It is easier to understand if you define a typedef first. The type sigHandler_t, shown next, is a pointer to a function that takes an int as its argument and returns a void:

typedef void (*sigHandler_t)(int);

sigHandler_t signal(int num, sigHandler_t func);

signal() is a function that takes an int and a sigHandler_t as its two arguments, and returns a sigHandler_t as its return value. The function passed in as the func argument will be the new signal handler for the exceptional condition numbered num. The return value is the previous signal handler for signal num. This value can be used to restore the previous behavior of a program, after temporarily setting a signal handler. The possible values for num are system dependent and are listed in signal.h. The possible values for func are any function in your program, or one of the two specially defined values SIG_DFL or SIG_IGN. The SIG_DFL value refers to the system's default action, which is usually to halt the program. SIG_IGN means that the signal is ignored.

The following line of code, when executed, causes the program containing it to ignore Ctrl-Break keystrokes unless the signal is changed again. Although the signal numbers are system dependent, the signal number SIGINT is normally used to refer to an attempt by the user to interrupt the program's execution (Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Break in DOS):

signal(SIGINT, SIG_IGN);


10. Why shouldn't I start variable names with underscores?

Identifier names beginning with two underscores or an underscore followed by a capital letter are reserved for use by the compiler or standard library functions wherever they appear. In addition, all identifier names beginning with an underscore followed by anything are reserved when they appear in file scope (when they are not local to a function).

If you use a reserved identifier for a variable name, the results are undefined (your program might not compile, or it might compile but crash). Even if you are lucky enough to pick an identifier that is not currently used by your compiler or library, remember that these identifiers are reserved for possible use later. Thus, it's best to avoid using an underscore at the beginning of variable and function names.

11. What math functions are available for integers? For floating point?

The operations +, -, *, and / (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) are available for both integer and floating-point arithmetic. The operator % (remainder) is available for integers only.

For floating-point math, many other functions are declared in the header file math.h. Most of these functions operate in double-precision floating point, for increased accuracy. If these functions are passed an argument outside of their domain (the domain of a function is the set of legal values for which it is defined), the function will return some unspecified value and will set the variable errno to the value EDOM. If the return value of the function is too large or small to be represented by a double (causing overflow or underflow), the function will return HUGE_VAL (for overflow) or 0 (for underflow) and will set errno to ERANGE. The values EDOM, ERANGE, and HUGE_VAL are defined in math.h.

The following list describes the functions declared in math.h:

1. double cos(double), double sin(double), double tan(double) take a value in radians and return the cosine, sine, and tangent of the value, respectively.

2. double acos(double), double asin(double), double atan(double) take a value and return the arc cosine, arc sine, and arc tangent of the value, respectively. The value passed to acos() and asin() must be in the range -1 to 1, inclusive.

3. double atan2(double x, double y) returns the arc tangent of the value represented by x/y, even if x/yis not representable as a double (if y is 0, for instance).

4. double cosh(double), double sinh(double), double tanh(double) take a value in radians and return the hyperbolic cosine, hyperbolic sine, and hyperbolic tangent of the value, respectively.

5. double exp(double x), double log(double x), double log10(double x) take a value and return ex, the natural logarithm of x, and the logarithm base 10 of x, respectively. The two logarithm functions will cause a range error (ERANGE) if x is 0 and a domain error (EDOM) if x is negative.

6. double sqrt(double) returns the square root of its argument. It causes a domain error (EDOM) if the value passed to it is negative.

7. double ldexp(double n, int e) returns n * 2e. This is somewhat analogous to the << operator for integers.

8. double pow(double b, double e) returns be. It causes a domain error (EDOM) if b is 0 and e is less than or equal to 0, or if b is less than 0 and e is not an integral value.

9. double frexp(double n, int *i) returns the mantissa of n and sets the int pointed to by i to the exponent of n. The mantissa is in the range 0.5 to 1 (excluding 1 itself ), and the exponent is a number such that n = mantissa * 2exponent.

10. double modf(double n, int *i) returns the fractional part of n and sets the int pointed to by i to the integer part of n.

11. double ceil(double), double floor(double) return the smallest integer greater than or equal to and the largest integer less than or equal to their arguments, respectively. For instance, ceil(-1.1) returns -1.0, and floor(-1.1) returns -2.0.

12. double fmod(double x, double y) returns the remainder of x/y. This is similar to the % operator for integers, but it does not restrict its inputs or result to be ints. It causes a domain error (EDOM) if y is 0.

13. double fabs(double) returns the absolute value of the value passed to it (a number with the same magnitude, but always positive). For instance, fabs(-3.14) returns 3.14.


12. What are multibyte characters?

Multibyte characters are another way to make internationalized programs easier to write. Specifically, they help support languages such as Chinese and Japanese that could never fit into eight-bit characters. If your programs will never need to deal with any language but English, you don't need to know about multibyte characters.

Inconsiderate as it might seem, in a world full of people who might want to use your software, not everybody reads English. The good news is that there are standards for fitting the various special characters of European languages into an eight-bit character set. (The bad news is that there are several such standards, and they don't agree.)

Go to Asia, and the problem gets more complicated. Some languages, such as Japanese and Chinese, have more than 256 characters. Those will never fit into any eight-bit character set. (An eight-bit character can store a number between 0 and 255, so it can have only 256 different values.)

The good news is that the standard library has the beginnings of a solution to this problem. <stddef.h> defines a type, wchar_t, that is guaranteed to be long enough to store any character in any language a C program can deal with. Based on all the agreements so far, 16 bits is enough. That's often a short, but it's better to trust that the compiler vendor got wchar_t right than to get in trouble if the size of a short changes.

The mblen, mbtowc, and wctomb functions transform byte strings into multibyte characters. See your compiler manuals for more information on these functions.


13. How can I manipulate strings of multibyte characters?

Say your program sometimes deals with English text (which fits comfortably into 8-bit chars with a bit to spare) and sometimes Japanese text (which needs 16 bits to cover all the possibilities). If you use the same code to manipulate either country's text, will you need to set aside 16 bits for every character, even your English text? Maybe not. Some (but not all) ways of encoding multibyte characters can store information about whether more than one byte is necessary.

mbstowcs ("multibyte string to wide character string") and wcstombs ("wide character string to multibyte string") convert between arrays of wchar_t (in which every character takes 16 bits, or two bytes) and multibyte strings (in which individual characters are stored in one byte if possible).

There's no guarantee your compiler can store multibyte strings compactly. (There's no single agreed-upon way of doing this.) If your compiler can help you with multibyte strings, mbstowcs and wcstombs are the functions it provides for that.