In the C language, we have some special words with their set of special characters; these words are called keywords.
Keywords are reserved in C; they cannot be used for other purposes as if we cannot declare a keyword a variable or we cannot use it as a constant also
There are 32 reserved keywords in the C language. Let us have a look at some.
break | const | case | do | char | default | continue | auto |
else | float | enum | if | extern | goto | for | double |
long | short | register | static | return | sizeof | signed | int |
switch | unsigned | typeof | while | union | volatile | void | struct |
Special characters in C
In the C programming language, special characters have their special meaning, and they cannot be used for other purposes.
Some of the special characters used in c are
- #
- *
- =
- ;
- ,
- {}
- []
- ()
- Preprocessor (#):
The preprocessor is used to transform the program before the compilation. Execution of the preprocessor takes place before compilation. The other name for preprocessor is “macro processor.”
- The assignment operator
This operator is used to assign any value. The assignment operator is used for many purposes in the c program. We can assign the value to the variable declared.
E.g. a=10;
Here we are assigning the value 10 to the variable a.
- Asterisk (*)
This special character creates a pointer variable.
Suppose we have variable a, then we can create the pointer to the variable as *a.
- Semicolon (;)
The semicolon is used to terminate the line. It is also called statement terminated in the c program; each line is ended with a semicolon.
In case we miss adding a semicolon at the end of each line in the program, then an error will be shown.
- Colon (:)
This special symbol is used for the initialization of the list.
- The comma (,)
If there is more than one statement, then a comma is used to separate the statements, for example, separating parameters in function calls.
- Braces{}
The opening braces to carry out some executions after finishing programming code-closing braces are used to close the code blocks and open the code blocks.
- Parentheses()
These parentheses are used in function parameters and in making function calls.
- Brackets[]
These brackets are used for array elements like
Single and multidimensional subscripts.
The table given below indicates the special characters and their respective meaning.
Special symbol |
Meaning |
*
~ ; |
Asterisks
Tilde semicolon |
!
$ # |
Exclamation mark
Dollar sign Number sign |
&
^ % |
Ampersand
Caret Percent sign |
)
(
|
Right parenthesis
Left parenthesis |
,
+ – |
Comma
Plus sign underscore |
.
/ \ |
Period
Slash backslash |
‘
“ |
Apostrophe
Quotation mark |