STANDARD LIBRARY FUNCTIONS Interview Questions :-
1. Why should I use standard library functions instead of writing my own?
The standard library functions have three advantages: they work, they’re efficient, and they’re portable. They work: Your compiler vendor probably got them right. More important, the vendor is likely to have done a thorough test to prove they’re right, more thorough than you probably have time for. (There are expensive test suites to make that job easier.)
They’re efficient: Good C programmers use the standard library functions a lot, and good compiler vendors know that. There’s a competitive advantage for the vendor to provide a good implementation. When competing compilers are compared for efficiency, a good compiler implementation can make all the difference. The vendor has more motivation than you do, and probably more time, to produce a fast implementation.
They’re portable: In a world where software requirements change hourly, the standard library functions do the same thing, and mean the same thing, for every compiler, on every computer. They’re one of the few things you, as a C programmer, can count on.
The funny thing is, one of the most standard pieces of information about the standard library is hard to find. For every function, there’s one header file (or, rarely, two) that guarantees to give you that function’s prototype. (You should always include the prototype for every function you call;) Explain What’s funny? That header file might not be the file that actually contains the prototype. In some (sad!) cases, it’s not even the header file recommended by the compiler manual. The same is true for macros, typedefs, and global variables.
2. Explain What header files do I need in order to define the standard library functions I use?
The funny thing is, these are not necessarily the files that define Explain What you’re looking for. Your compiler guarantees that (for example) if you want the EDOM macro, you can get it by including . EDOM might be defined in , or might just include something that defines it. Worse, the next version of your compiler might define EDOM somewhere else.
Don’t look in the files for the definition and use that file. Use the file that’s supposed to define the symbol you want. It’ll work.
A few names are defined in multiple files: NULL, size_t, and wchar_t. If you need a definition for one of these names, use a file you need to include anyway, or pick one arbitrarily. ( is a reasonable choice; it’s small, and it defines common macros and types.)
Standard library functions header files.
Function/Macro Header File
abort – stdlib.h
abs – stdlib.h
acos – math.h
asctime – time.h
asin – math.h
assert – assert.h
atan – math.h
atan2 – math.h
atexit – stdlib.h
atof – stdlib.h
atoi – stdlib.h
atol – stdlib.h
bsearch – stdlib.h
BUFSIZ – stdlib.h
calloc – stdlib.h
ceil – math.h
clearerr – stdio.h
clock – time.h
CLOCKS_PER_SEC – time.h
clock_t – time.h
cos – math.h
cosh – math.h
ctime – time.h
difftime – time.h
div – stdlib.h
div_t – stdlib.h
EDOM – errno.h
EOF – stdio.h
ERANGE – errno.h
errno – errno.h
exit – stdlib.h
EXIT_FAILURE – stdlib.h
EXIT_SUCCESS – stdlib.h
exp – math.h
fabs – math.h
fclose – stdio.h
feof – stdio.h
ferror – stdio.h
fflush – stdio.h
fgetc – stdio.h
fgetpos – stdio.h
fgets – stdio.h
FILE – stdio.h
FILENAME_MAX – stdio.h
floor – math.h
fmod – math.h
fopen – stdio.h
FOPEN_MAX – stdio.h
fpos_t – stdio.h
fprintf – stdio.h
fputc – stdio.h
fputs – stdio.h
fread – stdio.h
freopen – stdio.h
frexp – math.h
fscanf – stdio.h
fseek – stdio.h
fsetpos – stdio.h
ftell – stdio.h
fwrite – stdio.h
getc – stdio.h
getchar – stdio.h
getenv – stdlib.h
gets – stdio.h
gmtime – time.h
HUGE_VAL – math.h
_IOFBF – stdio.h
_IOLBF – stdio.h
_IONBF – stdio.h
isalnum – ctype.h
isalpha – ctype.h
iscntrl – ctype.h
isdigit – ctype.h
isgraph – ctype.h
islower – ctype.h
isprint – ctype.h
ispunct – ctype.h
isspace – ctype.h
isupper – ctype.h
isxdigit – ctype.h
jmp_buf – setjmp.h
labs – stdlib.h
LC_ALL – locale.h
LC_COLLATE – locale.h
LC_CTYPE – locale.h
LC_MONETARY – locale.h
LC_NUMERIC – locale.h
LC_TIME – locale.h
struct lconv – locale.h
ldexp – math.h
ldiv – stdlib.h
ldiv_t – stdlib.h
localeconv – locale.h
localtime – time.h
log – math.h
log10 – math.h
longjmp – setjmp.h
L_tmpnam – stdio.h
malloc – stdlib.h
mblen – stdlib.h
mbstowcs – stdlib.h
mbtowc – stdlib.h
MB_CUR_MAX – stdlib.h
memchr – string.h
memcmp – string.h
memcpy – string.h
memmove – string.h
memset – string.h
mktime – time.h
modf – math.h
NDEBUG – assert.h
NULL – locale.h, stddef.h, stdio.h, stdlib.h, string.h, time.h
offsetof – stddef.h
perror – stdio.h
pow – math.h
printf – stdio.h
ptrdiff_t – stddef.h
putc – stdio.h
putchar – stdio.h
puts – stdio.h
qsort – stdlib.h
raise – signal.h
rand – stdlib.h
RAND_MAX – stdlib.h
realloc – stdlib.h
remove – stdio.h
rename – stdio.h
rewind – stdio.h
scanf – stdio.h
SEEK_CUR – stdio.h
SEEK_END – stdio.h
SEEK_SET – stdio.h
setbuf – stdio.h
setlocale – locale.h
setvbuf – stdio.h
SIGABRT – signal.h
SIGFPE – signal.h
SIGILL – signal.h
SIGINT – signal.h
signal – signal.h
SIGSEGV – signal.h
SIGTERM – signal.h
sig_atomic_t – signal.h
SIG_DFL – signal.h
SIG_ERR – signal.h
SIG_IGN – signal.h
sin – math.h
sinh – math.h
size_t – stddef.h, stdlib.h, string.h, sprintf, stdio.h
sqrt – math.h
srand – stdlib.h
sscanf – stdio.h
stderr – stdio.h
stdin – stdio.h
stdout – stdio.h
strcat – string.h
strchr – string.h
strcmp – string.h
strcoll – string.h
strcpy – string.h
strcspn – string.h
strerror – string.h
strftime – time.h
strlen – string.h
strncat – string.h
strncmp – string.h
strncpy – string.h
strpbrk – string.h
strrchr – string.h
strspn – string.h
strstr – string.h
strtod – stdlib.h
strtok – string.h
strtol – stdlib.h
strtoul – stdlib.h
strxfrm – string.h
system – stdlib.h
tan – math.h
tanh – math.h
time – time.h
time_t – time.h
struct tm – time.h
tmpfile – stdio.h
tmpnam – stdio.h
TMP_MAX – stdio.h
tolower – ctype.h
toupper – ctype.h
ungetc – stdio.h
va_arg – stdarg.h
va_end – stdarg.h
va_list – stdarg.h
va_start – stdarg.h
vfprintf – stdio.h
vprintf – stdio.h
vsprintf – stdio.h
wchar_t – stddef.h, stdlib.h
wcstombs – stdlib.h
wctomb – stdlib.h
3. Explain How can I write functions that take a variable number of arguments?
Use . This defines some macros that let your program deal with variable numbers of arguments.
There’s no portable way for a C function, with no constraints on Explain What it might be passed, to know Explain How many arguments it might have gotten or Explain What their types are. If a C function doesn’t take a fixed number of arguments (of fixed types), it needs some convention for Explain What the arguments are. For example, the first argument to printf is a string, which indicates Explain What the remaining arguments are:
printf(“Hello, world!\n”); /* no more arguments */
printf(“%s\n”, “Hello, world!”); /* one more string argument */
printf(“%s, %s\n”, “Hello”, “world!”); /* two more string arguments */
printf(“%s, %d\n”, “Hello”, 42); /* one string, one int */
The below program sExplain Hows a simple printf-like function. The first argument is the format; from the format string, the number and types of the remaining arguments can be determined. As with the real printf, if the format doesn’t match the rest of the arguments, the result is undefined. There’s no telling Explain What your program will do then (but probably something bad).
#include
#include
#include
#include
static char * int2str(int n)
{
int minus = (n < 0); static char buf[32]; char *p = &buf[31]; if (minus) n = -n; *p = ‘\0’; do { *–p = ‘0’ + n % 10; n /= 10; } while (n > 0);
if (minus)
*–p = ‘-‘;
return p;
}
/* This is a simple printf-like function that handles only
the format specifiers %%, %s, and %d. */
void simplePrintf(const char *format, …)
{
va_list ap; /* ap is our argument pointer. */
int i;
char *s;
/* Initialize ap to start with the argument after “format” */
va_start(ap, format);
for ( ; *format; format++)
{
if (*format != ‘%’)
{
putchar(*format);
continue;
}
switch (*++format)
{
case ‘s’:
/* Get next argument (a char*) */
s = va_arg(ap, char *);
fputs(s, stdout);
break;
case ‘d’:
/* Get next argument (an int) */
i = va_arg(ap, int);
s = int2str(i);
fputs(s, stdout);
break;
case ‘\0’:
format–;
break;
default:
putchar(*format);
break;
}
}
/* Clean up varying arguments before returning */
va_end(ap);
}
void main()
{
simplePrintf(“The %s tax rate is %d%%.\n”, “sales”, 6);
}
4. Explain What is the difference between a free-standing and a hosted environment?
Not all C programmers write database management systems and word processors. Some write code for embedded systems, such as anti-lock braking systems and intelligent toasters. Embedded systems don’t necessarily have any sort of file system, or much of an operating system at all. The ANSI/ISO standard calls these “free-standing” systems, and it doesn’t require them to provide anything except the language itself. The alternative is a program running on a PC or a mainframe or something in-between; that’s a “hosted” environment.
Even people developing for free-standing environments should pay attention to the standard library. For one thing, if a free-standing environment provides some functionality (such as a square root function), it’s likely to provide it in a way that’s compatible with the standard. (Reinventing the square root is like reinventing the square wheel; Explain What’s the point?) Beyond that, embedded programs are often tested on a PC before they’re downloaded to a toaster (or Explain Whatever). Using the standard functions will increase the amount of code that can be identical in both the test and the real environments.
5. Explain What standard functions are available to manipulate strings?
Short answer: the functions in .
C doesn’t have a built-in string type. Instead, C programs use char arrays, terminated by the NUL (‘\0’) character.
C programs (and C programmers) are responsible for ensuring that the arrays are big enough to hold all that will be put in them. There are three approaches:
1. Set aside a lot of room, assume that it will be big enough, and don’t worry Explain What happens if it’s not big enough (efficient, but this method can cause big problems if there’s not enough room).
2. Always allocate and reallocate the necessary amount of room (not too inefficient if done with realloc; this method can take lots of code and lots of runtime).
3. Set aside Explain What should be enough room, and stop before going beyond it (efficient and safe, but you might lose data).
There are two sets of functions for C string programming. One set (strcpy, strcat, and so on) works with the first and second approaches. This set copies or uses as much as it’s asked to—and there had better be room for it all, or the program might be buggy. Those are the functions most C programmers use. The other set (strncpy, strncat, and so on) takes the third approach. This set needs to know Explain How much room there is, and it never goes beyond that, ignoring everything that doesn’t fit.
The “n” (third) argument means different things to these two functions:
To strncpy, it means there is room for only “n” characters, including any NUL character at the end. strncpy copies exactly “n” characters. If the second argument doesn’t have that many, strncpy copies extra NUL characters. If the second argument has more characters than that, strncpy stops before it copies any NUL character. That means, when using strncpy, you should always put a NUL character at the end of the string yourself; don’t count on strncpy to do it for you.
To strncat, it means to copy up to “n” characters, plus a NUL character if necessary. Because Explain What you really know is Explain How many characters the destination can store, you usually need to use strlen to calculate Explain How many characters you can copy.
The difference between strncpy and strncat is “historical.” (That’s a technical term meaning “It made sense to somebody, once, and it might be the right way to do things, but it’s not obvious why right now.”)
An example of the “string-n” functions.
#include
#include
/*
Normally, a constant like MAXBUF would be very large, to
help ensure that the buffer doesn’t overflow. Here, it’s very
small, to sExplain How Explain How the “string-n” functions prevent it from
ever overflowing.
*/
#define MAXBUF 16
int
main(int argc, char** argv)
{
char buf[MAXBUF];
int i;
buf[MAXBUF – 1] = ‘\0’;
strncpy(buf, argv[0], MAXBUF-1);
for (i = 1; i < argc; ++i) {
strncat(buf, ” “,
MAXBUF – 1 – strlen(buf));
strncat(buf, argv[i],
MAXBUF – 1 – strlen(buf));
}
puts(buf);
return 0;
}
strcpy and strncpy copy a string from one array to another. The value on the right is copied to the value on the left; think of the order as being the same as that for assignment.
strcat and strncat “concatenate” one string onto the end of another. For example, if a1 is an array that holds “dog” and a2 is an array that holds “wood”, after calling strcat(a1, a2), a1 would hold “dogwood”. strcmp and strncmp compare two strings. The return value is negative if the left argument is less than the right, zero if they’re the same, and positive if the left argument is greater than the right. There are two common idioms for equality and inequality:
if (strcmp(s1, s2)) {
/* s1 != s2 */
}
and
if (! strcmp(s1, s2)) {
/* s1 == s2 */
}
This code is not incredibly readable, perhaps, but it’s perfectly valid C code and quite common; learn to recognize it. If you need to take into account the current locale when comparing strings, use strcoll.
A number of functions search in a string. (In all cases, it’s the “left” or first argument being searched in.) strchr and strrchr look for (respectively) the first and last occurrence of a character in a string. (memchr and memrchr are the closest functions to the “n” equivalents strchr and strrchr.) strspn, strcspn (the “c” stands for “complement”), and strpbrk look for substrings consisting of certain characters or separated by certain characters:
n = strspn(“Iowa”, “AEIOUaeiou”);
/* n = 2; “Iowa” starts with 2 vowels */
n = strcspn(“Hello world”, ” \t”);
/* n = 5; white space after 5 characters */
p = strbrk(“Hello world”, ” \t”);
/* p points to blank */
strstr looks for one string in another:
p = strstr(“Hello world”, “or”);
/* p points to the second “o” */
strtok breaks a string into tokens, which are separated by characters given in the second argument. strtok is “destructive”; it sticks NUL characters in the original string. (If the original string should be changed, it should be copied, and the copy should be passed to strtok.) Also, strtok is not “reentrant”; it can’t be called from a signal-handling function, because it “remembers” some of its arguments between calls. strtok is an odd function, but very useful for pulling apart data separated by commas or white space.
The below program sExplain Hows a simple program that uses strtok to break up the words in a sentence.
/* An example of using strtok. */
#include
#include
static char buf[] = “Now is the time for all good men …”;
int main()
{
char* p;
p = strtok(buf, ” “);
while (p) {
printf(“%s\n”, p);
p = strtok(NULL, ” “);
}
return 0;
}
6. Explain How do I determine whether a character is numeric, alphabetic, and so on?
The header file ctype.h defines various functions for determining Explain What class a character belongs to. These consist of the following functions:
Function Character Class Returns Nonzero for Characters
isdigit() – Decimal digits – 0-9
isxdigit() – Hexadecimal digits – 0-9, a-f, or A-F
isalnum() – Alphanumerics – 0-9, a-z, or A-Z
isalpha() – Alphabetics – a-z or A-Z
islower() – Lowercase alphabetics – a-z
isupper() – Uppercase alphabetics – A-Z
isspace() – Whitespace – Space, tab, vertical tab, newline, form feed, or carriage return
isgraph() – Nonblank characters – Any character that appears nonblank when printed (ASCII 0x21 through 0x7E)
isprint() – Printable characters – All the isgraph() characters, plus space
ispunct() – Punctuation – Any character in isgraph() that is not in isalnum()
iscntrl() – Control characters – Any character not in isprint() (ASCII 0x00 through 0x1F plus 0x7F)
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. Explain 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? Explain 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. Explain 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 Explain How a program acts in different places. For example, the strcoll (string collate) function is like the simpler strcmp, but it reflects Explain 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() and longjmp(), 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 the jmp_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 Explain 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 Explain 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 calls longjmp(), the program behaves as if h() returned immediately, then g() returned immediately, then f() executed a goto back to the setjmp() call.
Explain What this means is that for a call to longjmp() to work properly, the program must already have called setjmp() 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
#include
#include
#include
#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. Explain What’s a signal? Explain 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 Explain 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
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, sExplain Hown 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. Explain 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/y is 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 someExplain What 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. Explain 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. 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. Explain 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.