Functions in C

Courtesy: Dr. Md. Alamgir Hosssain, Associate Professor, Dept. of ICT, IU

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 Index
§ Function § Types of user-defined functions
§ No Argument Passed and No
§ Types of functions Return value
§ User-defined § No Argument Passed But Return
function Value
§ Function § Argument Passed But No Return
prototypes Value
§ Calling Function § Argument Passed and Returns a
§ Function Definition Value
§ Passing arguments § Recursion
to a function § Storage class
§ Return Statement § automatic
§ external
§ static
§ register

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 What is Function? (1/2)

§ Function is a self contained block of statements that

perform a coherent task of some kind

§ Every C program can be a thought of the collection of

functions

§ main( ) is also a function

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 What is Function? (2/2)

§ Suppose, you need to create a program to create a

circle and color it.

You can create two functions to solve this problem:

§ create a circle function
§ create a color function

§ Dividing a complex problem into smaller chunks makes

our program easy to understand and reuse.

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 Types of Function

Library functions
These are the built in functions of of ‘‘C’’ library. These are
already defined in header files
e.g. printf ( ); is a function which is used to print at output.
It is defined in‘‘stdio.h’’

User defined functions

Programmer can create their own function in C to perform
specific task

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How user-defined function works

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Advantages of user-defined function

§ The program will be easier to understand, maintain and

debug

§ Reusable codes that can be used in other programs

§ A large project can be divided among many

programmers

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Example: C user-defined functions

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 Function prototype (1/2)

§ A function prototype is simply the declaration of a

function that specifies function's name, parameters and
return type. It doesn't contain function body

§ A function prototype gives information to the compiler

that the function may later be used in the program

Syntax of Function prototype

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 Function prototype (2/2)

In the above example, int addNumbers(int a, int b); is

the function prototype which provides the following
information to the compiler:

§ name of the function is addNumbers()

§ return type of the function is int
§ two arguments of type int are passed to the function

The function prototype is not needed if the user-defined

function is defined before the main() function

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 Calling Function

§ Control of the program is transferred to the user-

defined function by calling it

Syntax of function call

In the above example, the function call is made using

addNumbers(n1, n2);
statement inside the main() function

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 Function Definition

§ Function definition contains the block of code to perform

a specific task
§ In our example, adding two numbers and returning it
Syntax of function definition

§ When a function is called, the control of the program is

transferred to the function definition
§ And, the compiler starts executing the codes inside the
body of a function

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Passing arguments to a function

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Return Statement

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Syntax of return statement

Return statement syntax:

For Example:

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Types of user-defined functions

§ No Argument Passed and No Return value

§ No Argument Passed But Return Value
§ Argument Passed But No Return Value
§ Argument Passed and Return a Value

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No Argument Passed and No Return
Value

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No Argument Passed and but Return
Value

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Argument Passed and But No Return
Value

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Argument Passed and Return Value

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 C Recursion

§ A function that calls itself is known as a

recursive function
§ And, this technique is known as recursion

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How Recursion Works

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Recursion Example

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Explanation:

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 Storage Class

§ Storage class determines the scope, visibility and

lifetime of a variable.

There are 4 types of storage class:

§ automatic
§ external
§ static
§ register

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 Storage Class: Automatic/Local

§ The variables declared inside a block are automatic

or local variables

§ The local variables exist only inside the block in

which it is declared

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Storage Class: Automatic (Example)

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 Storage Class: External/Global

§ Variables that are declared outside of all functions

are known as external or global variables

§ They are accessible from any function inside the

program

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Storage Class: External (Example)

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 Storage Class: Register

§ The “register” keyword is used to declare register

variables
§ Scope of a register variable is local to the block in
which it is defined
§ Lifetime is till control remains within the block in
which the register variable is defined
§ Register variables tell the compiler to store the
variable in CPU register instead of memory
§ Frequently used variables are kept in registers and
they have faster accessibility
§ We can never get the addresses of these variables.
§ Register can not be used with static
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Storage Class: Accessing Address of
Register
§ If you use & operator with a register variable then
compiler may give an error or warning
§ (depending upon the compiler you are using),
§ because when we say a variable is a register,
§ it may be stored in a register instead of memory
and accessing address of a register is invalid

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Storage Class: Register with pointer
variables
§ A register can have address of a memory location.

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 Storage Class: Register not with
static
§ C doesn’t allow multiple storage class specifiers for
a variable.
§ So, register can not be used with static

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Storage Class: Register only within
a block

§ It can not be used in the global scope (outside

main)

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 Storage Class: Static

§ A static variable is declared by using the static

keyword

For example:
static int i;

§ The value of a static variable persists until the end

of the program

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Storage Class: static (Example)

Output:

6 11

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Thank You

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 References

https://www.programiz.com/c-programming/c-storage-class

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/understanding-register-keyword/

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/register-keyword-in-c

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