mostly used terms in c programming ~ gwax programs

Terms to KNOW

Address

- The numbered location of a place in memory. An address of a certain piece of
memory is used by the computer to identify each piece and locate it quickly, just as the postal
address of a house is used to help quickly identify it to the postman.

Array

- A data structure that groups a number of data elements of the same type together into a
sequential list in memory.

Declare

- To declare a variable or a function is to tell the computer that you intend to use the
function or variable being declared. The computer sets aside the resources needed to provide the
things being declared. In most high-level languages, like C/C++, variables must be explicitly
declared before they can be used, while in others, like lisp and perl, declaration is done implicitly
(without being specifically programmed in).

Dereference

- A pointer stores an address of a location in memory. To get at what that value
contains, we need to dereference the pointer, meaning we need to go to that location and get
what is there.

Hexadecimal Notation

- Like decimal notation and binary notation, hexadecimal notation is
another way of writing numbers. Hex is base 16, meaning that each digit can be one of 16
possibilities, 0 through 9 and A through F. Hexadecimal numbers are normally written with a
"0x" in front of them to inform the reader that it is in fact a hexadecimal number.

Memory

- Memory is hardware that can store information. Memory can usually store much
less information than a disk drive but is much faster to access. When programmers store data in
variables or dynamically allocated space, this data resides in memory.

Pointers

- Pointers are variables that store addresses, memory locations.

Pointer Arithmetic

- The process of adding or subtracting an integer to or from a pointer to
obtain the address of another piece of memory. Pointer arithmetic can also be used to subtract
one pointer from another in order to determine how many variables lie between the addresses
they store.

Segmentation Fault

- When a program tries to access a piece of memory that it doesn't have a
right to access, the operating system will do everything it can to prevent trouble trouble arising
from this illegal access. Often, it will attempt to shut the program down, resulting in the program
crashing. The process of accessing an invalid piece of memory is often referred to as seg
faulting, or causing a segmentation fault. Often, the term "seg fault" is used synonymously with
"crashing," as in "My program just seg faulted.