Looking For - C (Programming Language) Tutor

[Cavguy]

I am currently taking a C programming class in college and well to put it short I am lost. I need someone that knows the language to help guide me through the process of planning, creating structured programs and learning the C syntax.

Reason I ask here, is am hoping there is a fellow veteran that is an expert on the language that would be willing to help me. I have the books and have tried online tutorials but they just confuse me more...

Shoot me a PM if your close to Hollywood area and can help me, will work out compensation.

[AAShooter]

What exactly are you lost on? I know that might be hard to answer in your current state.

First off, do you understand the fundamentals of computer programming? Perhaps from another language.

Do you have a development environment in place that allows you to write, compile and debug C code?

Largely the syntax expertise comes through trial and error as you start writing more and more difficult programs. Your development environment can help if you have one that helps with and checks syntax. That will provide you real-time feedback. A lot of this is just practice.

Can you give examples of the structured programs you need to write?

[AAShooter]

Here is a tutorial . . .

http://www.tutorialspoint.com/cprogramming/cprogramming_tutorial.pdf

[the86d]

CROBOTS for DOS? :
http://crobots.deepthought.it/home.php?link=4 ?

CLI based Linux distro as a starting point as DOS is not as easy to find, or (FreeDOS could probably run =>) I have Borland TURBO C++ in the box on 3.5"?

I just found this http://www.learn-c.org/ , and I have a bunch of old "Learn C" manuals or something in my archives I might be able to dig-up...

[SacJDog]

I don't really use C anymore, mainly use C# and javascript, but did plenty of C in school for writing compilers and OS for CS classes. I might be able to point you in the right direction, but it will have to be through email as there is no way I'm driving down to LA from Sacramento.

[bigbearbear]

If you are going to be learning about computers, particularly about programming languages, you are going to have to first learn how to ask questions properly.

Posting a general "teach me about C" post isn't going to help, software developers are used to specifics, if you ask something specific (eg. who does the "if" statement work in C), I'm pretty sure how here will be able to answer it for you.

I've not used C for a while now, mainly use C# or Java these days but if those are classes type questions I think I can still hack it.

[Cavguy]

Ok, first thanks for the responses, bare with me here, I am having issues with structuring, logic, planning my program and the C syntax.

Yes, this is my first computer language.

I am writing source code for basic tasks, such as generating a random number then printing to the screen the number, converting a string of characters from lower case to upper case.

Now I know I could just copy code from the internet, but that would do me absolutely no good, as this is something I need to learn.

I have a complier, but it is not exactly helpful, as it tells me what line there is an error but I don't know what to do to correct it.

I need someone patient to be able to sit down with me and help guide me though the though process of planning and translating what I want to do into C code. Email I don't think will cut it.

Yes Barney style - walk crawl run. If anyone is close to Hollywood shoot me an email.

[dwtt]

I know email won't cut it, but your instructor should be able to answer your questions. That's what the guy is being paid for, to teach you. You seem to be concerned with syntax issues even though it looks like you haven't drawn out an algorithm for how the program is supposed to function.
I would suggest you ask you instructor all your questions, instead of asking some random person on the internet to be your tutor. If your instructor can't answer your questions, you should sign up with another class.

[mindwip]

80% of programing is taking code from somewhere and modifing it to work for you.

Nothing wrong with taking code that works and messing with it till you understand it. Its how I learned c# and vba.net. Also you RARELY just copy and paste someone elses code and it works there is normally a lot of changes that need to be made.

Ps in real life when your given a task rarly do you ever start from scratch. You are either modifing the pervous persons code to fit what your boss wants now or modifing your own code for something new.

Just a thought.

[d4v0s]

80% of programing is taking code from somewhere and modifing it to work for you.

Nothing wrong with taking code that works and messing with it till you understand it. Its how I learned c# and vba.net. Also you RARELY just copy and paste someone elses code and it works there is normally a lot of changes that need to be made.

Ps in real life when your given a task rarly do you ever start from scratch. You are either modifing the pervous persons code to fit what your boss wants now or modifing your own code for something new.

Just a thought.

Quoted for Truth!

Also, I function much better by writing the code in child language and then converting it to a workable program.

Example........
-User inputs data into computer, lower case
-input is stored in a variable
-modify variable to change all letters to uppercase
-display variable on screen.. Is it in uppercase?

Then you go through and start naming things..

int main()
{
int lower, upper; (You create these integers to hold data, one is called lower the other is upper.)

lower = getchar(); (getchar allows keyboard inputs to be accepted into a variable, the first part before the = sign tells the program where to store the data entered on a keyboard. )

upper = toupper(lower); (toupper is used to pull the uppercase equivalent of a keyboard entry. We are using toupper to scan the lower variable we specified in the first line and then store the upper case equivalents in the upper variable.)

putchar(upper); (putchar displays the data of a variable on the screen. so the putchar with upper arguement displays the contents of that variable only. If you put "putchar(lower) it would show you the original lower case entered on the keyboard.

return 0;
}

Here is what it looks like without my notations

int main()
{
int lower, upper;

lower = getchar();
upper = toupper(lower);
putchar(upper);

return 0;
}

Now this will give you a pretty boring program that simply accepts text, and displays in in uppercase. Here is the hardest part of programming for most, formatting words to be displayed. Why do we do this? So that people know what your asking of them, and then turning random outputs into usable information. Here is an example with some words to help the user...

int main()
{
int lower, upper;

printf("Please input a lowercase character: ")

lower = getchar();
upper = toupper(lower);
putchar(upper);

printf(" The uppercase equivalent is: %d ", upper)

return 0;
}

My best advice is to start playing around with how formatting works and presents thing. A common mistake is on the printf lines, you close your " too soon, so the output of variable upper is directly next to the colon symbol. Its not going to break your program, but its not considered clean.

Hope this helps a little, and maybe you can find someone near you. Dont be afraid to break it! download someones code and reverse engineer it! you will work out all your questions trying to modify someone elses work! Good luck and thanks for you service.

[d4v0s]

This line here stumps alot of folks so I wanted to address it a little further.

printf(" The uppercase equivalent is: ", upper)

printf displays the text inside () on the screen. Ok so the written words you want are inside of "". now, after the closing " you have a , space and the word upper.

This is calling the variable upper to be displayed on the screen. This can be a number, letters or combination there of, depending on what you need. You can string this together like this too.

printf(" The uppercase equivalent to %d is: %d\n ", lower, upper)

As you can see, I used two %d, and the last one is %d\n.. I then listed two variables. This fills in the first %d with lower variable, and the last one with upper. This is used alot in displaying information. In good programs you will want to list what the user inputs, that way if there are mistakes they can locate them.

Hope this is helping and not hurting. Just detailing where alot of people I know of run into problems.

[radgokart]

Just start writing code and if you get stuck stackoverflow.com

Fair warning, no one will help if you just ask for someone to tell you what to do. You need to post what you've already done.