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
- 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:
1) Letters
Uppercase characters (A-Z)
Lowercase characters (a-z)
2) Numbers
All the digits from 0 to 9
3) White spaces
Blank space
New line
Carriage return
Horizontal tab
4) Special characters
Special characters in ‘C’ are shown in the given table,
| Special Character | Description |
|---|---|
| , (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) |
In C programming, a token is the basic unit of a program. Tokens are the smallest building blocks of a C program, and they are classified into six categories:
- Keywords: These are reserved words that have a specific meaning in C and cannot be used as names for variables, functions, or any other user-defined identifiers. Examples of keywords include int, char, and while.
- Identifiers: These are names given to variables, functions, and other user-defined objects in a C program. Identifiers must start with a letter or an underscore, and can contain letters, digits, and underscores.
- Constants: These are fixed values that cannot be changed during the execution of a program. Constants can be of various types, such as integer, floating-point, and character constants.
- Strings: These are sequences of characters enclosed in double-quotes. Strings can be used to store text or a group of characters as a single entity. Special symbols: These are characters that have a special meaning in C, such as +, -, *, and /.
- Operators: These are special symbols that perform specific operations on variables and values in a C program. Operators include arithmetic operators (e.g., +, -, *, /), relational operators (e.g., >, <, ==), and logical operators (e.g., &&, ||, !).
- Special symbols: Special symbols are characters that are not letters or digits, but have a special meaning in C. Examples of special symbols include ;, (, ), {, and }.
- Strings: Strings are sequences of characters that are enclosed in double quotes. Examples of strings in C include "Hello, World!" and "This is a string.".
In a C program, tokens are used to represent various elements, such as variables, constants, and keywords, and they are combined to form expressions and statements.
In addition to these types of tokens, C also has a number of punctuation symbols, such as parentheses, curly braces, and semicolons, which are used to structure the code and separate statements.
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