What is C?

C is a general-purpose programming language created by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Laboratories in 1972. The C programming language is a procedural and general-purpose language that provides low-level access to system memory. A program written in C must be run through a C compiler to convert it into an executable that a computer can run. Many versions of Unix-based operating systems (OSes) are written in C and it has been standardized as part of the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX).

Today, the C programming language runs on many different hardware platforms and OSes such as Microsoft and Linux.