EE1005 From Computational

Thinking to Programming

Lesson 5
Standard Library Functions
(Reference: Harry H. Cheng, Chapter 6, 9, 12)
Dr. Tan Chee Wah, Wesley (CoPaCE/School of EEE)
Email: wesleytan@ntu.edu.sg
Office: S1-B1b-54
Phone: 6790 6009

“Be Prepared, Give Feedback”

 The C Standard Library

Functions are the building blocks of C

programs.

e.g. printf(), scanf(), sqrt()

CodeBlocks (other C systems as well) provides
a rich collection of powerful functions known as
the C Standard Library for our use.

5-2
 Header Files
The library has a set of associated header files
such as stdio.h. These contain
• prototypes of functions in the library
(Prototypes will be covered in a later lesson). .
• macro definitions
• other programming elements.

To use a function (e.g. printf( )), we need to

include the corresponding header file (stdio.h
for printf( )).
5-3
 Table 5.1 Selected Header Files

Header File Description

ctype.h Character handling

math.h Math functions
stdio.h Input/Output
stdlib.h Misc functions*
string.h String functions
time.h Time functions
5-4
* C Standard General Utilities Library
 cmath (math.h)
cos Compute cosine (function)
sin Compute sine (function)
tan Compute tangent (function)
acos Compute arc cosine (function)
asin Compute arc sine (function)
atan Compute arc tangent (function)
atan2 Compute arc tangent with two parameters (function)
cosh Compute hyperbolic cosine (function)
sinh Compute hyperbolic sine (function)
tanh Compute hyperbolic tangent (function)
exp Compute exponential function (function)
frexp Get significand and exponent (function)
ldexp Generate number from significand and exponent (function)
log Compute natural logarithm (function)
log10 Compute common logarithm (function)
modf Break into fractional and integral parts (function)
pow Raise to power (function)
sqrt Compute square root (function)
ceil Round up value (function)
fabs Compute absolute value (function)
floor Round down value (function)
fmod Compute remainder of division (function)
5-5
 How to use standard functions

We need to know:
• The name of the function
• What the function does
• Input Arguments (if any) of the function
• Data type of Output Result returned (if any)
• The associated header file name

5-6
 stdio.h
Some I/O functions/macros:
• printf()
• putchar() Displays one char on screen
Example: putchar('A');
• scanf()
• getchar() Gets one char from input stream
• fflush() Flushes I/O buffers

5-7
 Input Stream & Input Buffer
The characters you type at the keyboard
form an input stream.

Usually this stream of characters first goes

into an area of memory known as the input
buffer before being retrieved (e.g. by
scanf() or getchar()) in a running
program.

5-8
 Why Use fflush(stdin)?
This is used to flush away any unwanted
characters in the input buffer.
Consider
scanf("%d", &num);
scanf("%c", &ch);
to read an integer and a character from the
keyboard.
The second statement will not execute as
expected (i.e. character not captured)! Why?

Stdin:standard input stream 5-9

 scanf()
Some points to note about scanf():

(a) When using %c to read in characters,

remember that whitespaces (spaces, tabs,
newlines) are characters.

scanf("%c%c", &ch1, &ch2);

Be careful about how you enter these two

characters. DO NOT separate them using a
whitespace. IF you enter “a b” using keyboard,
‘a’ will be stored in ch1 and space character
(NOT ‘b’) in ch2! 5-10
 scanf()
(b) When reading in numbers using %d, %f or
%lf , scanf() skips leading whitespaces.

In inputting two numbers using

scanf("%d%d", &num1, &num2);
we can separate them using one or more
whitespaces which will be discarded by the
computer.

5-11
 scanf()
(c) When reading numeric data, it will
continue reading until it meets a trailing
whitespace.

scanf("%d", &a);

Suppose you type 123 456. This input is

considered as two numbers. scanf()will
only read 123, leaving the rest behind in the
input buffer.

5-12
 scanf()
(d) When reading numeric data, it will stop
reading any subsequent characters in the input
stream if it meets an invalid character.

scanf("%d", &a);

Suppose you type 123xyz. scanf() will read

the 123 part but leave xyz behind in the input
buffer.

IF you type ‘123’ and press ENTER key, 123

will be stored in a, leaving input (whitespace)
by ENTER key to be retrieved by next scanf() 5-13
 Use of fflush(stdin)
Thus, should write
scanf("%d", &num); //get integer
fflush(stdin); //remove whitespace
input when ENTER key is
pressed
scanf("%c", &ch); //get actual char
stdin refers to the input stream created by
input from the keyboard.

Getting two integers as below does not need

fflush(stdin) as whitespaces are discarded:
scanf("%d", &num1); 5-14
scanf("%d", &num2);
 getchar()
getchar() reads the next available character
from the input buffer and returns its value as
an integer.
We can assign the character read to a variable as
in the following:
ch = getchar();
or simply call the function without doing any
assignment:
getchar();

5-15
 getchar()

It will only read a character from the input buffer

after the user presses the ENTER key.

Suppose you type

When you press
abcd ↵ ENTER key

when getchar() is expecting input, getchar()

will only read the first character 'a', leaving
behind the others.

5-16
 Example: getchar()
getchar() can be used to stop program
execution temporarily until the user presses the
ENTER key.
{ . . .
fflush(stdin); /* Need to flush if
there is an input statement before this */
getchar(); /* Program pauses when
nothing is entered. When ENTER is pressed,
getchar() will read this whitespace */

//Proceed with subsequent statements

} 5-17
 math.h
Some mathematical functions:
fabs(x) Absolute (or positive) value of a number,
e.g. fabs(-5.78) returns 5.78. Return data
type (which is 5.78 here) is double/float.

Trigonometric functions:
sin(x), cos(x), tan(x) x must be in radians
asin(x), acos(x), atan(x) Inverse functions
Exponential and log functions
exp(x) ex
log(x) loge x
log10(x) log10 x 5-18
 math.h
Hyperbolic Functions:
sinh(x), cosh(x), tanh(x)

Other mathematical functions:

pow(x,y) x raised to power y

sqrt(x) Square root of x
ceil(x) Ceiling function
floor(x) Floor function

5-19
 Example: sqrt(), pow()

double sqrt(double x);

It normally takes an argument of type double
but float x (or even int) is also acceptable.

double pow(double x, double y);

double x = 2.718;
y = pow(x,6.0);  y = 2.7186.0
 z = (loge(2.718))2.5
z = pow(log(x),2.5);
Return data type of sqrt and pow is
double. 5-20
 Example: ceil() & floor()
double x;
ceil(x) returns the integer (as a value of
type double!) that is just larger than or equal
to x.

ceil(1.4) returns 2.0 ceil(1.4) 2.0

floor(x) returns the

integer (as a value of type 1.4
double) that is just smaller
than or equal to x.
floor(1.4) 1.0
floor(1.4) returns 1.0
5-21
 ctype.h
Some character functions:
• isalpha Alphabetic character like ‘a’?
• isdigit Numerical Digit character like ‘1’?
• isalnum Alphabetic or Numerical Digit character?
• islower Lower case character?
• isupper Upper case character?
• tolower Upper case --> lower case
• toupper Lower case --> upper case

5-22
 Example (isdigit)

Digit like
Non-zero
'1' isdigit
value (True)

Non-Digit like
'a' isdigit 0 (False)

5-23
 Example (isdigit)
#include <ctype.h>
char ch='1';
if (isdigit(ch) != 0) //isdigit() is TRUE
printf("%c is a digit.", ch);
else
printf("%c is not a digit.", ch);
Note:
• isdigit returns TRUE (not 0) or FALSE (0).
• != means not equal
• We’ll see later that the if statement can be
simply written as
if (isdigit(ch))
5-24
 stdlib.h
We shall only consider 4 functions:
abs(), system(), rand() and srand()

abs(x) returns the absolute (or positive integer)

value of a number x, e.g. abs(-5.78) returns 5.
Return data type (which is 5 here) is integer.

system() enables us to execute operating

system commands.

Example:
system("Pause");
causes program execution to pause until
5-25
we
press any key.
 stdlib.h: rand()

rand() and srand() are for generating

random integers.

The function rand() generates a random

integer within the range: 0 to 32767 (This
maximum value is defined as a macro
RAND_MAX in stdlib.h).

5-26
 Program 5.3 (rand())
/* Example on the use of rand() */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h> //Library for rand()

int main(void)
{
printf("Three random integers are:\n %d
%d %d\n", rand(), rand(), rand());

return 0;
}
5-27
 Program 5.3 (rand())
Output:
Three random integers are:
6334 18467 41

The program always produces the same output

when the program is run repeatedly. This is
normally not satisfactory. To make the result
unpredictable, we need to provide a “seed” to
the random number generator in rand().
Programmers frequently use the time, in
seconds, provided by the computer clock as this
seed number.
*Seed: A integer used to set the starting point
for generating a series of random
5-28

numbers.
 Program 5.4 (srand())
/* Example on the use of srand() */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <time.h> //Library for time()

int main(void)
{
srand((unsigned) time(NULL));
printf("Three random integers are:\n
%d %d %d\n", rand(),rand(),rand());

return 0;
}
5-29
 Program 5.4 (srand())
Output (different each time the program is run):

Three random integers are:

12066 20374 22199

time(NULL) returns the current calendar time.

Value is in terms of number of seconds elapsed,
usually since midnight January 1, 1970 GMT).

srand() takes an unsigned integer argument

as seed, time(NULL)in this example, and rand()
will generate random numbers based on seed
5-30
 Summary
1. stdio.h
• See Slide 5-7 for list of IO functions
2. math.h
• See Slide 5-18 and 19 for list of
mathematical functions
3. ctype.h
• See Slide 5-22 for list of character
handling functions

4. stdlib.h
• See Slide 5-25 for list of miscellaneous
functions
5. time.h – time (NULL) function
5-31