C Tokens

C Tokens, Keywords, Identifiers, Constants, Variables, Data Types
What is a Character set?

 Token
 Keywords and Identifiers
 What is a Variable?
 Integer data type
 Floating point data type
 Constants
What is a Character set?
Like every other language 'C' also has its own character set. A program is a
set of instructions that when executed, generate an output. The data that is
processed by a program consists of various characters and symbols. The
output generated is also a combination of characters and symbols.
A character set in 'C' is divided into,
 Letters
 Numbers
 Special characters
 White spaces (blank spaces)
A compiler always ignores the use of characters, but it is widely used for
formatting the data. Following is the character set in 'C' programming:
Letters
 Uppercase characters (A-Z)
 Lowercase characters (a-z)
Numbers
 All the digits from 0 to 9
White spaces
Blank space
New line
Carriage return
Horizontal tab
Special characters
Special characters in 'C' are shown in the given table,
, (comma) { (opening curly bracket)
. (period) } (closing curly bracket)
; (semi-colon) [ (left bracket)
: (colon) ] (right bracket)
? (question mark) ( (opening left parenthesis)
' (apostrophe) ) (closing right parenthesis)
" (double quotation mark) & (ampersand)
! (exclamation mark) ^ (caret)
|(vertical bar) + (addition)
/ (forward slash) - (subtraction)
\ (backward slash) * (multiplication)
~ (tilde) / (division)
_ (underscore) > (greater than or closing angle bracket)
$ (dollar sign) < (less than or opening angle bracket)
% (percentage sign) # (hash sign)
Token
A token is the smallest unit in a 'C' program. A token is divided into six
different types as follows,
Tokens in C
Keywords and Identifiers
In 'C' every word can be either a keyword or an identifier.
Keywords have fixed meanings, and the meaning cannot be changed. They
act as a building block of a 'C' program. There are total 32 keywords in 'C'.
Keywords are written in lowercase letters.
Following table represents the keywords in 'C',
auto double int struct

break else long switch
case enum register typedef
char extern return union
const short float unsigned
continue for signed void
default goto sizeof volatile
do if static while
 An identifier is nothing but a name assigned to an element in a
program. Example, name of a variable, function, etc.
 Identifiers are the user-defined names consisting of 'C' standard
character set.
 As the name says, identifiers are used to identify a particular element in
a program.
 Each identifier must have a unique name.
 Following rules must be followed for identifiers:
 The first character must always be an alphabet or an underscore.

 It should be formed using only letters, numbers, or underscore.
 A keyword cannot be used as an identifier.
 It should not contain any whitespace character.
 The name must be meaningful.
What is a Variable?
A variable is an identifier which is used to store some value. Constants can
never change at the time of execution. Variables can change during the
execution of a program and update the value stored inside it.
A single variable can be used at multiple locations in a program. A variable

name must be meaningful. It should represent the purpose of the variable.
Example: Height, age, are the meaningful variables that represent the
purpose it is being used for. Height variable can be used to store a height
value. Age variable can be used to store the age of a person
A variable must be declared first before it is used somewhere inside the
program. A variable name is formed using characters, digits and an
underscore.
Following are the rules that must be followed while creating a variable:
 A variable name should consist of only characters, digits and an

underscore.
 A variable name should not begin with a number.
 A variable name should not consist of whitespace.
 A variable name should not consist of a keyword.
 'C' is a case sensitive language that means a variable named 'age' and
'AGE' are different.
Following are the examples of valid variable names in a 'C' program:
height or HEIGHT
_height
_height1
My_name
Following are the examples of invalid variable names in a 'C' program:
1height
Hei$ght
My name
For example, we declare an integer variable my_variable and assign it the

value 48:
int my_variable;
my_variable = 48;
By the way, we can both declare and initialize (assign an initial value) a
variable in a single statement:
int my_variable = 48;
Data types
'C' provides various data types to make it easy for a programmer to select a
suitable data type as per the requirements of an application. Following are
the three data types:
Primitive data types

Derived data types
User-defined data types
There are five primary fundamental data types,
int for integer data

char for character data
float for floating point numbers
double for double precision floating point numbers
void
Array, functions, pointers, structures are derived data types. 'C' language
provides more extended versions of the above mentioned primary data types.
Each data type differs from one another in size and range. Following table
displays the size and range of each data type.
Data type Size in bytes Range

Char or signed char 1 -128 to 127
Unsigned char 1 0 to 255
int or signed int 2 -32768 to 32767
Unsigned int 2 0 to 65535
Short int or Unsigned short int 2 0 to 255
Signed short int 2 -128 to 127
Long int or Signed long int 4 -2147483648 to 2147483647
Unsigned long int 4 0 to 4294967295
float 4 3.4E-38 to 3.4E+38
double 8 1.7E-308 to 1.7E+308
Long double 10 3.4E-4932 to 1.1E+4932
Note: In C, there is no Boolean data type.
Integer data type

Integer is nothing but a whole number. The range for an integer data type
varies from machine to machine. The standard range for an integer data type
is -32768 to 32767.
An integer typically is of 2 bytes which means it consumes a total of 16 bits

in memory. A single integer value takes 2 bytes of memory. An integer data
type is further divided into other data types such as short int, int, and long
int.
Each data type differs in range even though it belongs to the integer data type
family. The size may not change for each data type of integer family.
The short int is mostly used for storing small numbers, int is used for storing
averagely sized integer values, and long int is used for storing large integer
values.
Whenever we want to use an integer data type, we have place int before the
identifier such as,
int age;
Here, age is a variable of an integer data type which can be used to store
integer values.
Floating point data type

Like integers, in 'C' program we can also make use of floating point data
types. The 'float' keyword is used to represent the floating point data type. It
can hold a floating point value which means a number is having a fraction
and a decimal part. A floating point value is a real number that contains a
decimal point. Integer data type doesn't store the decimal part hence we can
use floats to store decimal part of a value.
Generally, a float can hold up to 6 precision values. If the float is not

sufficient, then we can make use of other data types that can hold large
floating point values. The data type double and long double are used to store
real numbers with precision up to 14 and 80 bits respectively.
While using a floating point number a keyword float/double/long double

must be placed before an identifier. The valid examples are,
float division;
double BankBalance;
Character data type
Character data types are used to store a single character value enclosed in
single quotes.
A character data type takes up-to 1 byte of memory space.
Example,
Char letter;
Void data type
A void data type doesn't contain or return any value. It is mostly used for
defining functions in 'C'.
Example,
void displayData()
Type declaration of a variable
int main() {
int x, y;
float salary = 13.48;
char letter = 'K';
x = 25;
y = 34;
int z = x+y;
printf("%d \n", z);
printf("%f \n", salary);
printf("%c \n", letter);
return 0;}
Output:
59
13.480000
K
We can declare multiple variables with the same data type on a single line by
separating them with a comma. Also, notice the use of format specifiers in
printf output function float (%f) and char (%c) and int (%d).
Constants
Constants are the fixed values that never change during the execution of a
program. Following are the various types of constants:
Integer constants
An integer constant is nothing but a value consisting of digits or numbers.
These values never change during the execution of a program. Integer
constants can be octal, decimal and hexadecimal.
Decimal constant contains digits from 0-9 such as,

Example, 111, 1234
Above are the valid decimal constants.
Octal constant contains digits from 0-7, and these types of constants are
always preceded by 0.
Example, 012, 065
Above are the valid decimal constants.
Hexadecimal constant contains a digit from 0-9 as well as characters from A-

F. Hexadecimal constants are always preceded by 0X.
Example, 0X2, 0Xbcd
Above are the valid hexadecimal constants.
The octal and hexadecimal integer constants are very rarely used in
programming with 'C'.
Character constants
A character constant contains only a single character enclosed within a single
quote (''). We can also represent character constant by providing ASCII value
of it.
Example, 'A', '9'

Above are the examples of valid character constants.
String constants
A string constant contains a sequence of characters enclosed within double
quotes ("").
Example, "Hello", "Programming"

These are the examples of valid string constants.
Real Constants
Like integer constants that always contains an integer value. 'C' also provides
real constants that contain a decimal point or a fraction value. The real
constants are also called as floating point constants. The real constant
contains a decimal point and a fractional value.
Example, 202.15, 300.00

These are the valid real constants in 'C'.
A real constant can also be written as,
Mantissa e Exponent
For example, to declare a value that does not change like the classic circle
constant PI, there are two ways to declare this constant
By using the const keyword in a variable declaration which will reserve a

storage memory
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
const double PI = 3.14;
printf("%f", PI);
//PI++; // This will generate an error as constants cannot be changed
return 0;}
By using the #define pre-processor directive which doesn't use memory for
storage and without putting a semicolon character at the end of that statement
#include <stdio.h>
#define PI 3.14
int main() {
printf("%f", PI);
return 0;
}
Summary
 A constant is a value that doesn't change throughout the execution of a

program.
 A token is the smallest unit in a program.
 A keyword is reserved words by language.
 There are total 32 keywords.
 An identifier is used to identify elements of a program.
 A variable is an identifier which is used to store a value.
 There are four commonly used data types such as int, float, char and a
void.
 Each data type differs in size and range from one another.

C Tokens

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C Tokens, Keywords, Identifiers, Constants, Variables, Data Types

What is a Character set?

A character set in 'C' is divided into,

Following table represents the keywords in 'C',

auto double int struct

 The first character must always be an alphabet or an underscore.

A single variable can be used at multiple locations in a program. A variable

 A variable name should consist of only characters, digits and an

Following are the examples of invalid variable names in a 'C' program:

For example, we declare an integer variable my_variable and assign it the

int my_variable = 48;

Primitive data types

int for integer data

Data type Size in bytes Range

Integer data type

An integer typically is of 2 bytes which means it consumes a total of 16 bits

Floating point data type

Generally, a float can hold up to 6 precision values. If the float is not

While using a floating point number a keyword float/double/long double

A character data type takes up-to 1 byte of memory space.

Decimal constant contains digits from 0-9 such as,

Hexadecimal constant contains a digit from 0-9 as well as characters from A-

Example, 'A', '9'

Example, "Hello", "Programming"

Example, 202.15, 300.00

By using the const keyword in a variable declaration which will reserve a

 A constant is a value that doesn't change throughout the execution of a

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