C Standard Library Functions

C Standard Library Functions

The C Standard Library is a collection of functions and macros that are provided with every C compiler. It provides a wide range of functionality, including:

• Input/output (I/O) functions for reading and writing data from files and the console.
• String manipulation functions for creating, modifying, and comparing strings.
• Mathematical functions for performing common mathematical operations, such as arithmetic, trigonometry, and statistics.
• Memory management functions for allocating and freeing memory.
• Other functions for performing a variety of tasks, such as sorting, searching, and printing.

To use a function from the C Standard Library, you must first include the appropriate header file. For example, to use the printf() function, you must include the stdio.h header file.

Advantages of Using C library functions

• We need our program to perform some operations. To perform that operation, we need to create various datatypes, macros and functions. The advantage of using inbuilt library functions in C are that we already have many of the functions we need pre-defined. This reduces the work of the programmer.
• It also makes code more efficient as the implementation of the pre-defined function may be more efficient than many of us can write.
• It makes the code more readable by separating the definition of functions from the actual code.

Example: Square root using sqrt() function

The sqrt() function is a C library function that calculates the square root of a number. It is defined in the math.h header file.

Here is an example of how to use the sqrt() function:

Library Functions in Different Header Files