Advanced C Programming Notes Outline
Page 1: Overview of C Programming
Introduction to C
o History and evolution of C
o Why C is important: Systems programming, embedded systems, game development, etc.
Basic Syntax Review
o Data types, operators, and control structures
o Functions, recursion, and parameter passing
o Pointers and arrays
Page 2: Advanced Data Structures
Structs and Unions
o Defining and using structures
o Memory layout and alignment of structs
o Unions and their use cases
Dynamic Data Structures
o Implementing linked lists (single, double, circular)
o Stack and queue implementations
o Trees and binary search trees (insertion, deletion, traversal)
Page 3: Memory Management
Dynamic Memory Allocation
o Using malloc, calloc, realloc, and free
o Avoiding memory leaks and dangling pointers
Memory Alignment and Padding
o Understanding data alignment
o Memory padding in structures
Custom Memory Allocators
o Implementing custom memory pools
o Using slab and buddy allocation techniques
Page 4: Pointers and Pointer Arithmetic
Pointer Basics and Pointer Arithmetic
o Working with different types of pointers
o Arithmetic operations on pointers
Function Pointers and Callbacks
o Defining and using function pointers
o Implementing callback functions
Pointers to Arrays, Structures, and Functions
o Multidimensional arrays and array of pointers
o Pointer to a struct and accessing struct members
Page 5: File I/O and Input/Output Operations
File Handling Basics
o Opening, reading, writing, and closing files (fopen, fclose, fread, fwrite)
o Text vs. binary file operations
Advanced File I/O Techniques
o File positioning (fseek, ftell, rewind)
o Reading/writing large files efficiently
Formatted Input/Output
o Using printf, scanf, and formatted output
o Implementing custom format specifiers
Page 6: Preprocessor Directives and Macros
Macro Basics
o Defining and using macros (#define, #undef)
o Conditional compilation (#ifdef, #ifndef, #if, #else, #endif)
Advanced Macro Techniques
o Variadic macros and macro functions
o Using ## and # operators in macros
Header Guards and Include Files
o Preventing multiple inclusions with header guards
o Organizing code into header and implementation files
Page 7: Multithreading and Concurrency
Using the POSIX Threads (pthreads) Library
o Creating and managing threads (pthread_create, pthread_join)
o Thread synchronization using pthread_mutex and pthread_cond
Race Conditions and Deadlocks
o Detecting and avoiding race conditions
o Deadlock prevention strategies
Atomic Operations and Memory Barriers
o Using atomic operations for thread-safe programming
o Memory ordering and barriers
Page 8: Interfacing with the Operating System
System Calls and Low-Level I/O
o Using system calls (open, read, write, close)
o Differences between standard I/O and low-level I/O
Process Management
o Creating and managing processes (fork, exec, wait)
o Inter-process communication (pipes, shared memory)
Signals and Signal Handling
o Handling signals with signal and sigaction
o Implementing custom signal handlers
Page 9: Networking in C
Socket Programming Basics
o Creating sockets and basic socket operations (socket, bind, listen, accept)
o Differences between TCP and UDP sockets
Client-Server Model Implementation
o Writing simple client and server programs
o Handling multiple clients with select and poll
Asynchronous I/O and Non-Blocking Sockets
o Implementing non-blocking socket communication
o Using epoll for high-performance I/O multiplexing
Page 10: Advanced C Features and Best Practices
Inline Assembly and Linking with Other Languages
o Embedding assembly code with asm
o Calling C functions from other languages (e.g., Python, C++)
Debugging Techniques
o Using gdb for debugging
o Profiling with valgrind and gprof
Code Optimization and Best Practices
o Writing efficient and maintainable C code
o Memory optimization and reducing memory footprint
Modern C Standards (C11 and Beyond)
o New features in C11 (e.g., atomics, multi-threading)
o Static and thread-local storage
