Explain character-set in C ?

A character set in C refers to the collection of all characters that can be used within the language. It’s fundamental for representing text, symbols, and digits in C programs. Here are the key components:

1. Basic Character Set:

• Guaranteed to be available on all C implementations:
• Consists of:
  • Letters: Uppercase (A-Z) and lowercase (a-z)
  • Digits: 0-9
  • Punctuation: , . ; : ? ! – + * / < > = ( ) [ ] { } | \ ^ ~ % _ & `
  • Space character:
  • Control characters: Newline (\n), tab (\t), backspace (\b), etc.

2. Extended Character Set:

• Optional, may vary depending on the compiler and platform:
• Includes additional characters like:
  • Accented letters (é, ç, ü, etc.)
  • Currency symbols (£, €, ¥, etc.)
  • Mathematical symbols (π, ∫, √, etc.)
  • Other special characters

3. Escape Sequences:

• Special character combinations starting with a backslash ():
• Represent characters that are difficult or impossible to type directly:
  • Newline: \n
  • Tab: \t
  • Backspace: \b
  • Single quote: ‘
  • Double quote: “
  • Backslash: \
  • Null character: \0 (marks the end of a string)

4. Character Encoding:

• Determines how characters are represented in memory:
• Common encodings in C:
  • ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
  • Unicode (supports a much wider range of characters)

5. Character Data Types:

• C provides data types to store characters:
  • char: Stores a single character
  • char[]: Character array (string) to store multiple characters

Example:

char letter = 'A';   // Stores the character 'A'
char name[] = "Alice";  // Stores the string "Alice"

Key Points:

• C’s basic character set ensures a minimum set of characters across all platforms.
• Extended character sets offer flexibility for broader character representation.
• Escape sequences allow for special characters and control codes.
• Character encoding dictates how characters are stored internally.
• Data types like char and char[] are used to work with characters in C programs.