C is a general-purpose, procedural programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Laboratories. It was created to develop system software, particularly the UNIX operating system.
C provides a balance between low-level access to memory and high-level programming constructs, making it powerful and efficient. Programs written in C are fast, portable, and close to hardware, which is why it is widely used for operating systems, compilers, embedded systems, device drivers, and system utilities.
Key characteristics of C include:
Because of its simplicity, performance, and control over system resources, C remains one of the most important and widely used programming languages today.