DartmouthX: C Programming: Pointers and Memory Management

DartmouthX: C Programming: Pointers and Memory Management

by Dartmouth College

Course Description

This course delves deep into the foundational programming language concepts, particularly focusing on pointers and memory management in C programming. Building upon earlier concepts introduced in modular programming and memory management, this advanced course explores arrays of pointers, multidimensional arrays, pointer arithmetic, and dynamic memory allocation at runtime.

What Students Will Learn

  • How to visualize and implement pointers to pass and modify variables by reference through functions.
  • Application of pointer arithmetic to manage elements in one-dimensional and multi-dimensional arrays effectively.
  • Techniques for using arrays of strings to efficiently store and manage lists of strings within a single array variable.
  • Skills to control memory usage by dynamically allocating and freeing memory during runtime.

Pre-requisites or Skills Necessary

Students need to have completed or have equivalent knowledge from the following courses:

  • C Programming: Getting Started
  • C Programming: Language Foundations
  • C Programming: Modular Programming and Memory Management

Course Content

  • Introduction to advanced pointers
  • Understanding pointer arithmetic
  • Working with arrays of pointers and multi-dimensional arrays
  • Dynamic memory allocation techniques

Who This Course Is For

This course is designed for individuals who are interested in deepening their understanding of memory management in programming, particularly using C. It's ideal for students and professional developers who have a basic understanding of C programming and wish to advance their skills in practical and powerful aspects of the language.

Application of Learned Skills in the Real World

The advanced skills taught in this course can help learners in:

  • Developing efficient software applications that manage memory effectively, crucial for systems and applications where performance and resource utilization are key.
  • Understanding lower-level operations in computers, thereby providing a foundation for system programming, embedded systems development, and high-performance computing.
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