Chapter 5 - FUNCTIONS,VARIABLES, AND PROTOTYPES

OUR FIRST USER DEFINED FUNCTION

Example program ------> SUMSQRES.C

Load and examine the file SUMSQRES.C for an example of a C program with functions. Actually this is not the first function we have encountered because the main program we have been using all along is technically a function, as is the printf() function. The printf() function is a library function that was supplied with your compiler.

We will finally define what line 3 is for in this chapter but not until we get to about the fourth example program, so continue to wait patiently and ignore that line for the time being.

Notice the executable part of this program which begins in line 10 with a line of code that simply says "header();", which is the way to call any function. The parentheses are required because the C compiler uses them to determine that it is a function call and not simply a misplaced variable. When the program comes to this line of code, the function named header() is called, its statements are executed, and control returns to the statement following this call. Continuing on, we come to a for loop which will be executed 7 times and which calls another function named square() each time through the loop. Finally, a function named ending() will be called and executed. For the moment ignore the variable name index in the parentheses of the call to square(). We have seen that this program calls a header, 7 square calls, and an ending. Now we need to define the functions.

DEFINING THE FUNCTIONS

Following the main program you will see a function beginning in line 19 that follows all of the rules set forth so far for a main program except that it is named header(). This is the function which is called from line 10 of the main program. Each of these statements are executed, and when they are all complete, control returns to the main program, or more properly, the main() function.

The first statement sets the variable named sum equal to zero because we plan to use it to accumulate a sum of squares. Since the variable named sum is defined prior to the main program, it is available for use in any of the functions which are defined after the variable is defined. It is called a global variable, and its scope is the entire program including all functions. It is also sometimes referred to as a file variable because it is available throughout the file. More will be said about the scope of variables near the end of this chapter. The statement in line 22 outputs a header message to the monitor. Program control then returns to the main() function since there are no additional statements to execute in this function. Essentially, we drop out of the bottom of the function and return to the caller where we begin executing statements immediately following where the call was made from.

It should be clear to you that the two executable lines from this function could be moved to the main program, replacing the header call, and the program would do exactly the same thing that it does as it is now written. This does not minimize the value of functions, it merely illustrates the operation of this simple function in a simple way. You will find functions to be very valuable in C programming.

PASSING A VALUE TO A FUNCTION (CLASSIC METHOD)

Going back to the main program, and the for loop specifically, we find the new construct from the end of the last lesson used in the last part of the for loop, namely the index++ used in line 11. You should get familiar with this construct, as you will see it in a lot of C programs.

In the call to the function named square(), we have an added feature, the variable name index within the parentheses. This is an indication to the compiler that when you jump to the function, you wish to take along the value of index to use during the execution of that function. Looking ahead at the function named square() in line 26, we find that another variable name is enclosed in its parentheses, the variable number. This is the name we prefer to call the variable passed to the function when we are executing code within the function. We can call it anything we wish as long as it follows the rules of naming an identifier and is not a keyword. Since the function must know what type the variable is, it is defined following the function name but before the opening brace of the function itself. Therefore, line 23 containing the expression "int number;" tells the function that the value passed to it will be an int type variable. With all of that out of the way, we now have the value of index from the main program passed to the function square(), but renamed number, and available for use within the function. This is the classic style of defining function variables and has been in use since C was originally defined. A newer and much better method is gaining in popularity due to its many benefits and will be discussed later in this chapter.

Following the opening brace of the function, we define another variable named numsq for use only within the function itself, (more about that later) and proceed with the required calculations. We set the variable named numsq equal to the square of the value of number, then add numsq to the current total stored in the variable named sum. You should remember that the expression "sum += numsq;" has the same meaning as "sum = sum + numsq;" from the last lesson. We print the number and its square in line 33, and return to the main program.

MORE ABOUT PASSING A VALUE TO A FUNCTION

When we passed the value of the variable named index to the function, a little more happened than meets the eye. We didn't pass the variable named index to the function, we actually passed a copy of the value. In this way, the original value is protected from accidental corruption by the called function. We could have modified the variable named number in any way we wished in the function named square(), and when we returned to the main program, the variable named index would not have been modified. We thus protect the value of a variable in the calling function from being accidentally corrupted, but we cannot return a value to the calling function from a called function using this technique. We will find a well defined method of returning values to the main() function or to any calling function when we get to arrays and another method when we get to pointers. Until then, the only way you will be able to communicate back to the calling function will be with global variables. We have already hinted at global variables above, and will discuss them in detail later in this chapter.

Continuing in the main() function, we come to the last function call, the call to the function named ending() in line 13. This line calls the last function which has no local variables defined. It prints out a message with the value of the variable sum contained in it to end the program. The program ends by returning to the main() functoin and finding nothing else to do, so the program terminates. Compile and run this program and observe the output.

NOW TO CONFESS A LITTLE LIE

I told you a short time ago that the only way to get a value back to the calling function was through use of a global variable, but there is another way which we will discuss after you load and display the program named SQUARES.C. In this example program we will see that it is simple to return a single value from a called function to the calling function. But once again, it is true that to return more than one value, we will need to study either arrays or pointers.

Example program ------> SQUARES.C

In the main() function, we define two integers and begin a for loop in line 8 which will be executed 8 times. The first statement within the for loop is "y = squ(x);", which is a new and rather strange looking construct. From past experience, we should have no trouble understanding that the squ(x) portion of the statement is a call to the function named squ() taking along the value of x as a parameter. Looking ahead to line 20 of the function itself, we find that the function prefers to call the input variable input, and it proceeds to square the value of input and call the result square. Finally, a new kind of a statement appears in line 26, the return statement. The value within the parentheses is assigned to the function itself and is returned as a usable value in the main program. Thus, the function call "squ(x)" is assigned the value of the square and returned to the main program such that the variable named y is then set equal to that value. If the variable named x were therefore assigned the value 4 prior to this call, y would then be set to 16 as a result of the code in line 10.

The parentheses around the return value in line 26 are not required, but are included by many experienced C programmers.

Another way to think of this is to consider the grouping of characters squ(x) as another variable with a value that is the square of x, and this new variable can be used any place it is legal to use a variable of its type. The values of the variables x and y are then printed out.

To illustrate that the grouping of squ(x) can be thought of as just another variable, another for loop is introduced in line 14 in which the function call is placed within the printf() statement rather than assigning it to a new variable.

One last point must be made, the type of variable returned must be defined in order to make sense of the data, but the compiler will default the type to int if none is specified. If any other type is desired, it must be explicitly defined. How to do this will be demonstrated in the next example program. We are simply using the default return type in this program.

Be sure to compile and run this program which also uses the classic method of defining function variables. Once again, any warnings can be ignored.

FLOATING POINT FUNCTIONS

Example program ------> FLOATSQ.C

Load the program FLOATSQ.C for an example of a function in the classic style with a float type of return. It begins by defining a global floating point variable named z which we will use later. Then in the main part of the program, an integer is defined, followed by two floating point variables, and then by two strange looking definitions. The expressions sqr() and glsqr() look like function calls. This is the proper way to define that a function will return a value that is not of type int, but of some other type, in this case float. This tells the compiler that when a value is returned from either of these two functions, it will be of type float. This is, once again, the classic method of defining functions and is all but obsolete now. Note that neither function is actually called by the code in line 9, these only declare the return type for these two functions.

Now refer to the function named sqr() starting in line 29 and you will see that the function name is preceded by the keyword float. This is an indication to the compiler that this function will return a value of type float to any program that calls it. The type of the function return is now compatible with the call to it. The line following the function name contains float inval;, which indicates to the compiler that the variable passed to this function from the calling program will be of type float. Since we told the caller we would be returning a float type, we actually return the value in line 35 so everything matches up.

The function named glsqr() beginning in line 39, will also return a float type variable, but it uses a global variable for input. It does the squaring right within the return statement and therefore has no need to define a separate variable to store the product. The function sqr() could have done the squaring right in the return also, but was done separately as an illustration of what can be done.

The overall structure of this program should pose no problem and will not be discussed in any further detail. As is customary with all example programs, compile and run this program and ignore any warnings you may get.

THE CLASSIC STYLE

The three programs we have studied in this chapter so far use the classic style of function definition. Although this was the first style defined for C, it is rapidly being replaced with a more modern method of function definition because the modern method does so much for you in detecting and flagging errors. As you read articles on C, you will see programs written in the classic style, so you need to be capable of reading them. This is the reason the classic style was included in this chapter. It would be highly recommended, however, that you learn and use the modern method which will be covered shortly in this tutorial. In fact, you are advised to never use the classic style for any of your programming efforts.

The book by Kernigan and Ritchie, "The C Programming Language - Second Edition" is the definitive text of the classic style of C programming.

The remainder of this tutorial will use the modern method as recommended and defined by the ANSI-C standard. If you have an older compiler, it may not work on some of these files and it will be up to you to modify the programs as needed to conform to the classic style. Actually, the ANSI-C standard is used so universally, if you have a non-ANSI compiler you should use it only as a doorstop and purchase a good ANSI compatible compiler for the rest of your studies.

THE RETURN TYPE OF main()

In the original K&R definition of C, all functions returned an int type variable by default, unless the author specified something different. Since explicitly returning a value when leaving a function was optional, most C was written in the following manner;

   main()
   {
      ...
   }

   void main()
   {
      ...
   }

   int main()
   {
      ...
      return 0;
   }

In order to make your code as portable as possible, you should always use the last form above.

You can finally see why we have been adding the line that returns a value of zero to the operating system. This indicates to the operating system that the program executed normally.

SCOPE OF VARIABLES

Example program ------> SCOPE.C

Load the next program, SCOPE.C, and display it for a discussion of the scope of variables in a program. You can ignore the 4 statements in lines 2 through 5 of this program for a few moments. We will discuss them later. We will spend a good deal of time in this program and cover a lot of new topics. Many of the topics covered here will not seem to be particularly useful, but stay with it because they are very important.

WHAT IS A GLOBAL VARIABLE?

The variable defined in line 7 is a global variable named count which is available to any function in the program since it is defined before any of the functions. It is always available because it exists during all the time that the program is being executed. (That will make sense shortly.) Farther down in the program, another global variable named counter is defined in line 29 which is also global but is not available to the main() function since it is defined following the main() function. A global variable is any variable that is defined outside of any function. Note that both of these variables are sometimes referred to as external variables because they are external to any functions, and they are sometimes also called file variables.

Global variables are automatically initialized to zero when they are defined. Therefore, the variables named count and counter will both be initialized to a value of 0.

Return to the main() function and you will see the variable named index defined as an int in line 11. Ignore the word register for the moment. This variable is only available within the main() function because that is where it is defined. In addition, it is an automatic variable, which means that it only comes into existence when the function in which it is contained is invoked, and ceases to exist when the function is finished. This really means nothing here because the main() function is always in operation, even when it gives control to another function. Another integer is defined within the for loop braces named stuff. Any pairing of braces can contain variable definitions which will be valid and available only while the program is executing statements within those braces. The variables will be automatic variables and will cease to exist when execution leaves the braces. The variable named stuff will therefore be created and destroyed 8 times, once for each pass through the loop.

MORE ON AUTOMATIC VARIABLES

Observe the function named head1() in line 30 which looks a little funny because of void being used twice. The purpose of the use of the word void will be explained shortly. The function contains a variable named index, which has nothing to do with the variable named index in line 11 of the main() function, except that both are automatic variables. When the program is not actually executing statements in this function, this variable named index does not even exist. When head1() is called, the variable is generated, and when head1() completes its task, the variable in head1() named index is eliminated completely from existence. (The automatic variable is stored on the stack. This topic will be covered later.) Keep in mind however that this does not affect the variable of the same name in the main() function, since it is a completely separate entity.

Automatic variables therefore, are automatically generated and disposed of when needed. The important thing to remember is that from one call of a function to the next call, the value of an automatic variable is not preserved and must therefore be reinitialized.

WHAT ARE STATIC VARIABLES?

An additional variable type must be mentioned at this point, the static variable. By putting the keyword static in front of a variable definition within a function, the variable or variables in that definition are static variables and will stay in existence from call to call of the particular function. A static variable is initialized once, at load time, and is never reinitialized during execution of the program.

By putting the static keyword in front of an external variable, one outside of any function, it makes the variable private and not accessible to use in any other file. (This is a completely different use of the same keyword.) This implies that it is possible to refer to external variables in other separately compiled files, and that is true. Examples of this usage will be given in chapter 14 of this tutorial. They are not illustrated here.

USING THE SAME NAME AGAIN

Refer to the function named head2(). It contains another definition of the variable named count. Even though count has already been defined as a global variable in line 7, it is perfectly all right to reuse the name in this function. It is a completely new variable that has nothing to do with the global variable of the same name, and causes the global variable to be unavailable within this function. This allows you to write programs using existing functions without worrying about what names were used for global variables or in other functions because there can be no conflict. You only need to worry about the variables that interface with the functions.

WHAT IS A REGISTER VARIABLE?

Now to fulfill a promise made earlier about what a register variable is. A computer can keep data in a register or in memory. A register is much faster in operation than memory but there are very few registers available for the programmer to use. If there are certain variables that are used extensively in a program, you can designate that those variables are to be stored in a register in order to speed up the execution of the program. The method of doing this is illustrated in line 11. Your compiler probably allows you to use one or more register variables and will ignore additional requests if you request more than are available. The documentation for your compiler should list how many registers are available with your compiler. It will also inform you of what types of variables can be stored in a register. If your compiler does not allow the use of register variables, the register request will simply be ignored.

WHAT IS PROTOTYPING?

A prototype is a model of a real thing and when programming in ANSI-C, you have the ability to define a model of each function for the compiler. The compiler can then use the model to check each of your calls to the function and determine if you have used the correct number of arguments in the function call and if they are of the correct type. By using prototypes, you let the compiler do some additional error checking for you. The ANSI standard for C contains prototyping as part of its recommended standard. Every ANSI-C compiler will have prototyping available, so you should learn to use it. Much more will be said about prototyping throughout the remainder of this tutorial.

Returning to lines 3, 4, and 5 in SCOPE.C, we have the prototypes for the three functions contained within the program. The first void in each line tells the compiler that these particular functions do not return a value, so that the compiler would flag the statement index = head1(); as an error because nothing is returned to assign to the variable named index. The word void within the parentheses tells the compiler that this function requires no parameters and if a variable were included, it would be an error and the compiler would issue a warning message. If you wrote the statement head1(index);, it would be a error. This allows you to use type checking when programming in C in much the same manner that it is used in Pascal, Modula-2, or Ada, although the type checking in C is relatively weak.

You should begin using prototype checking at this time, for all of the functions you define. Your compiler may have an option that will require a prototype for every function. This should be enabled and left enabled. Check your documentation for the details of how to do it. Prototyping will be used throughout the remainder of this tutorial. If your compiler does not support prototyping and the modern method of function definition, you will have to modify the remaining example programs. A much better solution would be to purchase a better compiler.

Line 2 of SCOPE.C tells the system to go to the standard directory where include files are stored and get a copy of the file named stdio.h which contains the prototypes for the standard input and output functions so they can be checked for proper variable types. Don't worry about the include yet, it will be covered in detail later in this tutorial. Be sure to compile and execute this program.

STANDARD FUNCTION LIBRARIES

Every compiler comes with some standard predefined functions which are available for your use. These are mostly input/output functions, character and string manipulation functions, and math functions. We will cover many of these in subsequent chapters. Prototypes are defined for you by the writer of your compiler for all of the functions that are included with your compiler. A few minutes spent studying your reference guide will give you an insight in where the prototypes are defined for each of the functions. Most compilers have additional functions predefined that are not standard but allow the programmer to get the most out of his particular computer. In the case of the IBM-PC and compatibles, most of these functions allow the programmer to use the BIOS services available in the operating system, or to write directly to the video monitor or to any place in memory. These will not be covered in any detail as you will be able to study these unique aspects of your compiler on your own. Several of these kinds of functions are used in the example programs in chapter 14.

WHAT IS RECURSION?

Example program ------> RECURSON.C

Recursion is another of those programming techniques that seem very intimidating the first time you come across it, but if you will load and display the example program named RECURSON.C, we will take all of the mystery out of it. This is probably the simplest recursive program that it is possible to write and it is therefore a stupid program in actual practice, but for purposes of illustration, it is excellent.

Recursion is nothing more than a function that calls itself. It is therefore in a loop which must have a way of terminating. In the program on your monitor, the variable named index is set to 8 in line 9, and is used as the argument to the function named count_dn(). The function simply decrements the variable, prints it out in a message, and if the variable is greater than zero, it calls itself, where it decrements the variable again, prints it, etc. etc. etc. Finally, the variable will reach zero, and the function will not call itself again. Instead, it will return to the prior time it called itself, and return again, and again, until finally it will return to the main() function and from there return to the operating system.

For purposes of understanding you can think of it as having 8 copies of the function named count_dn() available and it simply called all of them one at a time, keeping track of which copy it was in at any given time. That is not what actually happened, but it is a reasonable illustration for you to begin understanding what it was really doing.

WHAT DID IT DO?

A better explanation of what actually happened is in order. When you called the function from itself, it stored all of the variables and all of the internal flags it needs to complete the function in a block somewhere. The next time it called itself, it did the same thing, creating and storing another block of everything it needed to complete that function call. It continued making these blocks and storing them away until it reached the last function when it started retrieving the blocks of data, and using them to complete each function call. The blocks were stored on an internal part of the computer called the stack. This is a part of memory carefully organized to store data just as described above. It is beyond the scope of this tutorial to describe the stack in detail, but it would be good for your programming experience to read some material describing the stack. A stack is used in nearly all modern computers for internal housekeeping chores.

In using recursion, you may desire to write a program with indirect recursion as opposed to the direct recursion described above. Indirect recursion would be when a function A calls the function B, which in turn calls A, etc. This is entirely permissible, the system will take care of putting the necessary things on the stack and retrieving them when needed again. There is no reason why you could not have three functions calling each other in a circle, or four, or five, etc. The C compiler will take care of all of the details for you.

The thing you must remember about recursion is that at some point, something must go to zero, or reach some predefined point to terminate the loop. If not, you will have an infinite loop, and the stack will fill up and overflow, giving you an error and stopping the program rather abruptly.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF RECURSION

Example program ------> BACKWARD.C

The program named BACKWARD.C is another example of recursion, so load it and display it on your screen at this time. This program is similar to the last one except that it uses a character array. Each successive call to the function named forward_and_backwards() causes one character of the message to be printed. Additionally, each time the function ends, one of the characters is printed again, this time backwards as the string of recursive function calls is retraced.

This program uses the modern method of function definition and includes full prototype definitions. The modern method of function definition moves the types of the variables into the parentheses along with the variable names themselves. The final result is that the line containing the function definition looks more like the corresponding line in a language with relatively strong type checking such as Pascal, Modula-2, or Ada. The prototype in line 5 is simply a copy of the function header in line 20 followed by a semicolon. The designers of C even allow you to include a variable name along with each type. The name is ignored by the compiler but including the name in the prototype could give you a good idea of how the variable is used, acting like a comment.

Don't worry about the character array defined in line 9 or the other new material presented here. After you complete chapter 7 of this tutorial, this program will make sense. It was felt that introducing a second example of recursion was important so this file is included here. You will note that this program actually does something useful with recursion, but it would be mighty easy to duplicate the action of the program without recursion. We will study some programs later where recursion is required.

Compile and run this program and observe the results.

THE FLOAT SQUARE PROGRAM WITH PROTOTYPES

Example program ------> FLOATSQ2.C

Load and display the program named FLOATSQ2.C which is an exact copy of the program FLOATSQ.C which we considered earlier with prototyping added. The use of prototyping is a good practice for all C programmers to get into.

Several things should be mentioned about this program. First, the word float at the beginning of lines 32 and 41 indicate to the compiler that these functions are functions that return float type values. Also, since prototypes for the functions are given before main(), the functions are not required to be identified in line 12 as they were in line 9 of FLOATSQ.C earlier in this chapter. Notice also that the type of the variable named inval is included within the parentheses in lines 4 and 32.

After you compile and execute this program, ignoring any warnings, remove the parameter from line 17 to see what kind of error message you get.

A CONFUSING PROBLEM THAT COMES UP AT TIMES

Suppose we wrote the following line of code in the FLOATSQ2.C program,

   printf(" ... ", sqr(5.0), glsqr());

MORE STYLE ISSUES

Example program ------> STYLE2.C

The example named STYLE2.C is given as an illustration of various ways to format a function. You will note different ways to define the input parameters. Examples three and four are both the same style, but example four illustrates the style when nothing is passed in or returned. This style states very clearly that nothing is needed or returned and it cannot be construed as an oversight. Spend some time studying these function examples, then begin developing the style you will use. If you are like most programmers, you will develop a style that you plan to use forever, then change it every few months or on every new project.

PROGRAMMING EXERCISES

1. Rewrite TEMPCONV.C from an earlier chapter, and move the temperature calculation to a function.
2. Write a program that writes your name on the monitor 10 times by calling a function to do the writing. Move the called function ahead of the main function to see if your C compiler will allow it.
3. Add prototyping to the programs named SUMSQRES.C and SQUARES.C, and change the function definitions to the modern method.