Easier to read with cream paper, a tint, more contrast or larger text? Choose your colours and text, once, for every page.

Free module

C and systems programming

Learn C and systems programming hands on: memory, pointers, strings, the stack and heap, fork and exec, and finding a crash with gdb.

6 lessons325 min lessonCore computer science

The lessons

Each lesson is free to read in full. Create a free account to run its commands in a live lab and to sit its quizzes and tasks.

  1. 1 · Virtual machine lab

    How C stores variables in memory

    I can say how big a variable is and where it sits in memory.

    Read the lesson

  2. 2 · Virtual machine lab

    How pointers work in C

    I can read and write C code that uses pointers.

    Read the lesson

  3. 3 · Virtual machine lab

    C arrays and strings in memory

    I can explain arrays as memory and strings as bytes that end in zero.

    Read the lesson

  4. 4 · Virtual machine lab

    Stack and heap memory in C

    I can say where a variable lives and what malloc and free do.

    Read the lesson

  5. 5 · Virtual machine lab

    How fork, exec and wait work

    I can explain how a process starts another with fork, exec and wait.

    Read the lesson

  6. 6 · Virtual machine lab

    Finding a crash with gdb

    I can find the line where a program crashes with a debugger.

    Read the lesson

Worked in a real lab

Every lesson of this module is worked in a lab started for you alone. The labs it uses:

Teaching a class? Set this module for your students with a teacher guide, marked assignments and a lab for every student.