C language Statements

Single C language instruction delimited by a semi-colon is called a statement. Statements are written in accordance with the grammar of C language. Blank space is inserted between words to improve the readability. However, no blank spaces are allowed within a word. Usually all C statements are entered in lower case letters. C is a free form language. There are no restrictions regarding the format of writing C language statements. The statements can start and terminate anywhere on the line. They can also be split over multiple lines. Every C language statement always ends with a semicolon.

Compilers and Interpreters

Note that the only language a digital computer understands is binary coded instructions. Even the above implementation will not execute on a computer without further translation into binary (machine) code. This translation is not done manually, however. There are programs available to do this job. These translation programs are called compilers and interpreters.

Compilers and interpreters are programs that take a program written in a language as input and translate it into machine language. Thus a program that translates a C program into machine code is called C compiler; BASIC program into machine code is called a BASIC compiler and so on.

Therefore, to implement an algorithm on a computer you need to have a compiler for the language you have chosen for writing the program for the algorithm.

A number of different compilers are available these days for C language. ANSI, Borland C, Turbo C, etc. are only few of the popular C compilers. As a matter of fact, these software tools are little more than just compiler. They provide a complete environment for C program development. They include, among others, an editor to allow Program writing, a Compiler for compilation of the same, a debugger for debugging/testing the program , and so forth. Such tools are referred to as IDE (Integrated Development Environment) or SDK (Software Development Kit).