C Programming — Complete Course Notes (BCA 1st Sem)
Comprehensive master notes covering fundamentals, syntax, control statements, arrays, pointers, structures, and file I/O for TU BCA 1st semester.
C Programming · CACS101 · Semester 1
Unit 6•Unit 6 of 6
Unit 6: 5. Pointers and Dynamic Memory Allocation
A pointer is a variable that stores the memory address of another variable.
- The address-of operator
&retrieves the memory address. - The dereference operator
*accesses the value stored at that address.
```c #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h>
int main() { int ptr = (int )malloc(5 * sizeof(int)); if (ptr == NULL) { printf("Memory allocation failed!\n"); return 1; }
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) { ptr[i] = (i + 1) 10; printf("Element %d at %p = %d\n", i, (void)&ptr[i], ptr[i]); }
free(ptr); // Prevent memory leak return 0; } ```
CS50x Introduction to C Programming Lecture (David J. Malan)
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Related notes
- Unit 1: Introduction to Programming Concepts and C Language NotesNotes
- Unit 2: Operators and Expressions NotesNotes
- Unit 3: Input and Output Operations NotesNotes
- Unit 4: Control Statements and Decision Making NotesNotes
- Unit 5: Arrays and String Manipulations NotesNotes
- Unit 6: Functions and Recursion NotesNotes
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Practice questions
- Which of the following is an invalid variable name in C? (a) _salary (b) 1st_rank (c) total_sum (d) age2objective · 1 marks
- What is the return type of the `malloc()` function in C? (a) `int*` (b) `char*` (c) `void*` (d) `float*`objective · 1 marks
- Explain the difference between call by value and call by reference in C with suitable code snippets.short · 5 marks
- What is recursion? Write a recursive function in C to calculate the factorial of a positive integer.short · 5 marks
- Explain dynamic memory allocation in C. Differentiate between `malloc()` and `calloc()`. Write a C program to dynamically allocate memory for N integers, sort them in ascending order, and free the memory.long · 10 marks