C is perhaps the most popular programming language in today’s computer world. This procedural language was developed at Bell Labs in the early 1970’s. Initially, it was designed only for Unix-based systems. However, later it was enhanced for using on different other platforms.

C language has a number of similarities with assembly language and it is often referred as Portable Assembly. C code can be compiled to run on any computer.
C language was developed aiming to write large programs in the procedural programming model with fewer errors.

C language is a simple core language consisting important functionalities like file handlers, math functions etc. It uses the preprocessor language for defining macros and including various source code files. Following are some of the other important features of C:
· Usage of pointers for low-level unchecked access to computer memory
· Parameter passing to functions by values, not by reference
· Simple datatype system
· User defined aggregate datatypes, called as structs, allow combining and manipulating related data as a whole

C is prized for its efficiency and is the programmer’s popular choice for writing system software and applications. The programmer can keep a close control of what the program is doing. The uniqueness in C is that, it also supports the compilers, libraries and interpreters of other higher-level languages.