The C programming language was invented in the early 1970s, and since then has become one of the most popular and widely used general-purpose languages. It's used by a wide range of programmers, from amateurs working on simple projects at home, to industry professionals who write in C for a living. It's been used to program everything from the tiny microcontrollers used in watches and toasters up to huge software systems - most of Linux (and Raspberry Pi OS itself) is written in it. It can give you control over the smallest details of how a processor operates, but is still simple to learn and read.

C is a very powerful language – there's not much you can't use it for – but it's fairly simple. The language itself only has 20 or so keywords, but there's a huge library of additional functions that you can call in when you need them.

Learn to code with C on your Raspberry Pi across 13 packed chapters:

• Create variables & do arithmetic
• Control the flow of your C programs
• For loops and case statements
• Understand and create functions
• Work with arrays and strings
• Interpreting user input
• and much more

This book is an introduction to programming in C for absolute beginners; you don't need any previous programming experience, and a Raspberry Pi running Raspberry Pi OS is all you need to get started.