dictionary of multimedia and internet applications: a guide for developers and users. francis botto

Print ISBN 0-471-98624-0 Online ISBN 0-470-84178-8

C A general-purpose high-level programming language. Designed by Dennis Ritchie in 1972, it was used to develop the first implementation of the Unix operating system at Bell Labs. C programs are comparatively portable, and the transition from one platform to another can often be done by simply recompiling, though some recoding may be required. Most C programming tools are supplied with comprehensive function libraries, which include facets of those developed for the purpose of programming Unix. These provide high-level functions such as file and memory manage-ment. Commercial C programming tools are produced by Microsoft, Inprise, Powersoft and Symantec. Since its introduction, C has evolved into C, an object-oriented programming (OOP) language. Visual C programming tools are also available. The RAD tool Optima (from Powersoft) generates C code without the need for programming on a line by line basis.

(See C , RAD tool and Visual Basic.)

C An object-oriented version of the C programming language. Like modern programming languages such as Java, it provides the programmer with OO methodologies. Bjarne Stroustrup evolved C from C, which has links with BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language). It extends the C programming language through the inclusion of the OO concepts of:

● inheritance

● polymorphism

● encapsulation

● data hiding

(See Data hiding, Encapsulation, Inheritance and Polymorphism.) ANSI C is an internationally agreed standard for the C pro-gramming language.

#include <file> When compiled, the #include statement is implemented

by the preprocessor, which reads the contents of a named file.