C Programming Course in Pune with Placement

C from first principles. Cover the compilation model (preprocessing → compilation → assembly → linking — and why each stage matters), GCC 14 / Clang 18+ on Linux / WSL2 / macOS, the standard C library, plus the modern toolchain — Make for build management, gdb for debugging, valgrind for memory checks, cppcheck for static analysis. Then the language basics — primitive types, signed vs unsigned integer math, the integer-promotion rules (where most C bugs come from), variables, control flow (if / else / switch / while / for / do-while), basic operators, expressions.

C's type system is small and unforgiving, and understanding it precisely is what makes the rest of the language safe. Integer and floating types and their actual sizes on your machine; signed against unsigned and the wraparound behaviour that produces security bugs; constants and `const`; and the storage classes — `auto`, `static`, `extern`, `register` — which decide lifetime and visibility.

Operators cover arithmetic, relational, logical, bitwise, assignment and the conditional operator, along with precedence, associativity, and the type-promotion rules that quietly turn a comparison into something other than what it looks like. Overflow, underflow and undefined behaviour are named here rather than met later as a mystery.

The building blocks of every algorithm you will write, taught until the logic is automatic. `if`, `else if`, nested conditions and `switch` with its fall-through behaviour — which is a feature often enough to be worth understanding rather than always guarding against.

Loops cover `for`, `while` and `do...while`, nesting, and `break` and `continue`, along with the off-by-one errors that account for a large share of beginner bugs. The module deliberately spends time on trace-by-hand exercises: writing the value of each variable on paper for each iteration is slow, unfashionable and the single fastest way to stop guessing what a loop does.

Functions — declarations vs definitions, header files, parameter passing (by value), return values, recursion, plus the discipline of writing functions that return error codes (errno style) vs out-parameters. Arrays — declaration, initialisation, indexing, the array-decays-to-pointer rule that confuses every C beginner once but is fundamental once internalised. Strings — null-terminated character arrays, string.h functions (strlen, strcpy, strncpy, strcat, strcmp), and the security implications (buffer overflow — the source of most CVEs in C code).

The heart of C, and the topic that separates C programmers from C-fluent programmers. Cover what a pointer actually is (an address, with a type that determines how it is interpreted), pointer declaration and dereferencing, pointer arithmetic, pointer-to-pointer (and why double pointers appear in real code), arrays as pointers (the deep equivalence), function pointers (and how they enable callbacks), const-correctness on pointers (`const char *` vs `char * const` vs `const char * const`), plus the discipline of always initialising pointers (NULL or a valid address — never uninitialised).

malloc / calloc / realloc / free — the four functions that define C memory management, and the discipline of using them without leaking or double-freeing. Cover the heap vs the stack vs the data segment, when each fits, the discipline of paired allocate / free in the same scope when possible, plus modern alternatives (RAII patterns where you can simulate them in C, the goto-cleanup pattern that is widely used in the Linux kernel for error paths). We use valgrind extensively in this week — every student finds and fixes at least three real memory bugs they wrote.

User-defined types in C. Structures (struct) — declaration, member access, dot vs arrow operator, structure padding and alignment (the topic every embedded interview tests for), bitfields (used heavily in microcontroller register definitions), self-referential structures (the foundation of linked lists, trees, graphs). Unions and when they are right (memory-constrained embedded code, type-punning carefully). Enumerations (enum) — when to use them vs preprocessor macros. We finish by implementing a small linked list and a binary tree in pure C.

The material that makes C worth learning even if you never ship C, and that appears constantly in embedded, systems and interview contexts. Bitwise AND, OR, XOR and NOT; left and right shifts and the difference between arithmetic and logical shifting; and the standard idioms — setting, clearing, toggling and testing an individual bit.

Bit fields inside structures, masks and flag registers follow, which is exactly how hardware is addressed in embedded work. The module closes on the classic interview problems: counting set bits, swapping without a temporary, checking powers of two, and finding the single unpaired number in an array.

File handling — fopen / fclose / fread / fwrite / fprintf / fscanf, plus the lower-level POSIX system calls (open, read, write, close — the foundation that real Linux / embedded code uses). Standard library coverage — stdio.h, stdlib.h, string.h, math.h, time.h, ctype.h. The preprocessor in depth — #define for constants and macros, conditional compilation (#ifdef / #ifndef / #if), include guards, plus the discipline of using `static const` and `enum` over `#define` for constants in modern C.

How a C program stops being one file. Header files and implementation files and what belongs in each; include guards and `#pragma once` and the duplicate-definition errors they prevent; `extern` declarations; and internal linkage with `static` at file scope, which is C's approximation of a private function.

The compilation model is then made explicit — preprocess, compile, assemble, link — because almost every confusing C error is a message from one specific stage, and knowing which one narrows the problem immediately. Makefiles cover targets, dependencies and incremental builds, and you split an existing single-file program into a properly organised project.

Building the structures other languages hand you, which is the fastest route to genuinely understanding them. Linked lists — singly, doubly and circular — implemented with your own memory management, so that insertion, deletion and traversal are operations you have written rather than called.

Stacks and queues on both arrays and lists; trees and binary search trees with recursive traversal; and hash tables with a collision strategy you chose. Because C gives you no safety net, every leak and every dangling pointer is yours to find — which is exactly why this module produces a durable understanding that a `std::vector` or an `ArrayList` never does.

C fails in ways higher-level languages cannot, so diagnosis is a taught skill rather than an assumed one. Compiler warnings turned all the way up and treated as errors — most segmentation faults were a warning you ignored. GDB for breakpoints, stepping, backtraces and inspecting memory; Valgrind and sanitisers for leaks, invalid reads and use-after-free.

Security covers the classic C vulnerability classes, which exist because the language trusts you: buffer overflows, `gets` and the unsafe string functions, format-string bugs, integer overflow, and unchecked `malloc`. The defensive habits taught here — bounds checking, safe alternatives, validating every input — are the difference between working code and safe code.

One week of full-time capstone work plus a focused 'next-step' embedded / systems primer. Pick one of three capstone projects (see Capstone Projects). The final session previews embedded development (ARM toolchain, microcontroller basics on STM32 / ESP32) or our C++ track based on your target. Mock interviews are calibrated for entry-level embedded / firmware / systems roles in Pune; resume / LinkedIn / GitHub polish included.

Turning language knowledge into the ability to solve an unfamiliar problem under time pressure, which is what a technical screening measures. Decomposition, pseudocode before code, and tracing an approach on paper before typing it — the habits that separate candidates who start writing immediately and fail from those who think first and finish.

The standard patterns follow: searching, sorting, recursion and its base cases, two pointers, sliding windows and prefix sums. Complexity analysis runs throughout in Big-O terms, because the follow-up question after "does it work" is always "what does it cost", and a candidate without an answer stalls there.

The professional habits, applied to systems work. Git as collaboration rather than three memorised commands: branching, merging, resolving conflicts, pull requests, and a commit history someone else can follow.

For C specifically, a credible repository needs more than source: a Makefile that builds cleanly, a README stating platform and compiler assumptions, sample input and expected output, and a statement of what the program does not handle. That last item matters more than beginners expect — a candidate who documents the limitations of their own code reads as considerably more senior than one who claims none.