C Program Statements

In the last lesson you started to study a program written in C. You looked at the program, compiled and ran it, and learned about its overall structure. In this lesson we will look at the program more closely and talk about its individual statements. At the end of today's lesson you should know enough C to be able to write your own, all-new programs.

Before we begin, you'll need to have a copy of the program ``joints.c'' from the previous lesson. Hopefully this program is already in your examples directory (i.e., the directory named examples inside your home directory). But if for some reason you need a new copy of the program, click on the button below.

Click to copy the example files.

Use Emacs to view ``joints.c''.

You can also view the program as joints.c.

Remember from the previous lesson that the program solves a kinematics problem pertaining to a sports training exercise called the ``squat.'' In particular, the programs determine the X and Y coordinate position of the squatter's knee joint.

Let's go through the program and look at the actual instructions--program statements--that make it up.