CLA – C Certified Associate Programmer Certification

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C Certified Associate Programmer is a professional certificate that measures your ability to accomplish coding tasks related to the basics of programming in the C programming language, as well as fundamental programming techniques, customs and vocabulary, including the most common library functions and the usage of the preprocessor.

Exam Information

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CLA – C Certified Associate Programmer Certification: Exam Syllabus

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Exam block #1: Absolute basics

Objectives covered by the block

• languages: natural and artificial,
• machine languages,
• high-level programming languages,
• obtaining the machine code: compilation process,
• writing simple programs,
• variables,
• integer values in real life and in C,
• integer literals.

Exam block #2: Data Types

Objectives covered by the block

• floating point values in real life and in C,
• float literals,
• arithmetic operators,
• priority and binding,
• post- and pre-incrementation and decrementation,
• operators of type op=,
• char type and ASCII code,
• char literals,
• equivalence of int and char data,
• comparison operators,
• conditional execution and if keyword,
• printf() and scanf() functions.

Exam block #3: Flow control

Objectives covered by the block

• conditional execution: the “else” branch,
• integer and float types,
• conversions,
• typecast and its operators,
• loops – while, do and for,
• controlling the loop execution – break and continue,
• logical and bitwise operators.

Exam block #4: Arrays

Objectives covered by the block

• switch: different faces of ‘if’,
• arrays (vectors),
• sorting in real life and in a computer memory,
• initiators,
• pointers,
• an address, a reference, a dereference and the sizeof operator,
• simple pointer and pointer to nothing (NULL),
• & operator,
• pointers arithmetic,
• pointers vs. arrays: different forms of the same phenomenon,
• using strings,
• basic functions dedicated to string manipulation.

Exam block #5: Memory management and structures

Objectives covered by the block

• array indexing,
• the usage of pointers: perils and disadvantages,
• void type,
• arrays of arrays and multidimensional arrays,
• memory allocation and deallocation: malloc() and free() functions,
• arrays of pointers vs. multidimensional arrays,
• structures,
• declaring, using and initializing structures,
• pointers to structures and arrays of structures,
• basics of recursive data collections.

Exam block #6: Functions

Objectives covered by the block

• functions,
• how to declare, define and invoke a function,
• variables’ scope, local variables and function parameters,
• pointers, arrays and structures as function parameters,
• function result and return statement,
• void as a parameter, pointer and result,
• parameterizing the main function,
• external function and the extern declarator,
• header files and their role.

Exam block #7: Files and streams

Objectives covered by the block

• files vs. streams,
• header files needed for stream operations,
• FILE structure,
• opening and closing a stream, open modes, errno variable,
• reading and writing to/from a stream,
• predefined streams: stdin, stdout and stderr,
• stream manipulation: fgetc(), fputc(), fgets() and fputs() functions,
• raw input/output: fread() and fwrite() functions.

Exam block #8: Preprocessor and complex declarations

Objectives covered by the block

• preprocessor,
• #include: how to make use of a header file,
• #define: simple and parameterized macros,
• #undef directive,
• predefined preprocessor symbols,
• macrooperators: # and ##,
• conditional compilation: #if and #ifdef directives,
• avoiding multiple compilations of the same header files,
• scopes of declarations, storage classes,
• user –defined types,
• pointers to functions,
• analyzing and creating complex declarations.

First published: November 15, 2012

Last updated: December 13, 2023

Aligned with Exam CLA-11-03