Understanding Algorithms and Flowcharts

Book excerpt: This is a condensed version of Chapter III (Algorithms & Programming Languages) from the book "Fundamentals of Modern Information Technology" (Italian Edition). This book has been written primarily for students, but also for the professional, and it can serve as a starting point for anyone who is beginning the study of computer science and information systems for the first time. In the following text, algorithms and flowcharts are analyzed accurately, with clear examples, and with the implementation in C code, both elementary and complex algorithms are studied. Data types (simple and structured) are initially introduced, and algorithms and flowcharts are defined and illustrated with graphical and textual explanations. In the next sections, simple and complex standard algorithms with their flowcharts are studied: everything is integrated with explanations and tables to have a step by step evolution of the algorithms. The main analyzed algorithms are: the sum of three or n numbers in a loop, the maximum and minimum search, the linear/sequential search, the binary search, the bubble sort, the selection sort, the merging of two sorted arrays, and the reading chars from file algorithm. The last section of the text is devoted to the introduction of the C language and the implementation of the code, which is connected to the studied algorithms.