The focus of this effort is to provide interesting and particularly-focused challenges that will help the evolving programmer reach into the niches needed for accelerated comprehension and practice, along with information helpful to that end. A few notable things to know about my particular approach:

• All content is intended for a UNIX-like context (UNIX, Linux, BSD, etc…), as I'm not interested in using or working with, let alone teaching or propogating, Microsoft technologies.
• I don't want to reproduce content/effort that is already well-done and freely available on the internet, so I will frequently refer to such other free tutorial content.
• It is expected that exercises will compel a learner to ask questions, so anyone using this tutorial content should do so while having someone they feel comfortable asking about places they might get stuck on.

Here are the locations of existing free tutorial content that I have reviewed, and seen fit to refer to:

• TutorialsPoint C tutorial

The first portion of this exercise is to complete the TutorialsPoint C-Environment Setup tutorial phase (but skip the “Try It Option Online” part).
Once that is complete, proceed with:

• Make sure you have the “Hello world” program from TutorialsPoint in a .c file
• Compile your program (you can use this step if you like)
• Read the man page for the GNU make command
• Write a Makefile to build your program
• Ensure your Makefile also supports a clean target, which removes products of compilation
• Test out all aspects of your Makefile to ensure it operates as expected

Remember to have your work reviewed by, as well as to seek help/advice from, your instructor.

Here is a sample Makefile as a kick-start:

PGM = hello

all : $(PGM)
        @echo Done

clean :
        @rm -f *.o

$(PGM) : hello.c
        gcc -o $(PGM) hello.c

Read these sections in the TutorialsPoint tutorial:

• Basic Syntax
• Data Types
• Variables

… then, read the manpage for printf.

Once complete with these readings, write a program that stores integer values in four different integer variables, and prints each out using the printf function, making sure the name of the variable is shown before the value.
Once you have completed that, read this TutorialsPoint section, and then alter your program to do a number of typical arithmetic operations upon your variables, printing out both a label showing the calculation being done and the result for each.

Read these sections in the TutorialsPoint tutorial:

• Decision Making
• Loops

… then, alter your program to start with one number (as one of your variables), and compute the result of n2 - 1 for n up to a higher number (as another of your variables). Make sure that the calculation being performed and the result are printed for each iteration.

When that program is complete, read this TutorialsPoint section, and then move your calculations into a function that takes the beginning and ending for you loop as parameters.

Links: Tech Info … Mantis Area