Lecture

Understanding Microcontrollers: Functions

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Description

This lecture covers the basics of functions in microcontroller programming, including rules for naming constants, variables, and functions, using 'define' for hardware description, and structuring programs with top-down or bottom-up approaches. Examples demonstrate defining pins, creating functions for robot movements, managing global and local variables, and passing parameters. The importance of meaningful names, adherence to naming conventions, and step-by-step complexity progression are emphasized.

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Theoretical computer science

Programming language theory: High-level programming languages

Related concepts (32)

Local variable

In computer science, a local variable is a variable that is given local scope. A local variable reference in the function or block in which it is declared overrides the same variable name in the larger scope. In programming languages with only two levels of visibility, local variables are contrasted with global variables. On the other hand, many ALGOL-derived languages allow any number of nested levels of visibility, with private variables, functions, constants and types hidden within them, either by nested blocks or nested functions.

Global variable

In computer programming, a global variable is a variable with global scope, meaning that it is visible (hence accessible) throughout the program, unless shadowed. The set of all global variables is known as the global environment or global state. In compiled languages, global variables are generally static variables, whose extent (lifetime) is the entire runtime of the program, though in interpreted languages (including command-line interpreters), global variables are generally dynamically allocated when declared, since they are not known ahead of time.

Non-local variable

In programming language theory, a non-local variable is a variable that is not defined in the local scope. While the term can refer to global variables, it is primarily used in the context of nested and anonymous functions where some variables can be in neither the local nor the global scope. In Lua they are called the upvalues of the function. In the Python 3 example that follows there is a nested function inner defined in the scope of another function outer.

Variable (computer science)

In computer programming, a variable is an abstract storage location paired with an associated symbolic name, which contains some known or unknown quantity of data or object referred to as a value; or in simpler terms, a variable is a named container for a particular set of bits or type of data (like integer, float, string etc...). A variable can eventually be associated with or identified by a memory address. The variable name is the usual way to reference the stored value, in addition to referring to the variable itself, depending on the context.

Functional programming

In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by applying and composing functions. It is a declarative programming paradigm in which function definitions are trees of expressions that map values to other values, rather than a sequence of imperative statements which update the running state of the program. In functional programming, functions are treated as first-class citizens, meaning that they can be bound to names (including local identifiers), passed as arguments, and returned from other functions, just as any other data type can.

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