Programming for

IT Professionals

Hennepin Technical College CCIS1105: Network Essentials

 Objectives
• Explain basic programming concepts
• Write a simple C program
• Explain how Web pages are created with HTML
• Describe and create basic Perl programs
• Explain basic object-oriented programming concepts

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 Introduction to Computer
Programming
• Computer programmers must understand the rules
of programming languages
– Programmers deal with syntax errors
• One minor mistake and the program will not run
– Or worse, it will produce unpredictable results
• Being a good programmer takes time and patience

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 Computer Programming
Fundamentals
• Fundamental concepts
– Branching, Looping, and Testing (BLT)
– Documentation

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Branching, Looping, and Testing (BLT)
• Function
– Mini program within a main program that carries out a
task
• Branching
– Takes you from one area of the program to another
area
• Looping
– Act of performing a task over and over
• Testing
– Verifies some condition and returns true or false
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Branching, Looping, and Testing (BLT)
(continued)
main()
{
int a = 1 /* Variable initialized as an integer, value 1 */
if (a > 2) /* Testing if "a" is greater than 2 */
printf("A is greater than 2");
else
GetOut(); /* Branching--calling a different function */

GetOut() /* Do something interesting here */

{
for(a=1; a<11; a++) /* Loop to print 10 times */
{
printf("I'm in the GetOut() function");
}
}
}

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Branching, Looping, and Testing (BLT)

• Algorithm
– Defines steps for performing a task
– Keep it as simple as possible
• Bug
– An error that causes unpredictable results
• Pseudocode
– English-like language used to create the structure of a
program

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 Documentation
• Documenting your work is essential
– Add comments to your programs
– Comments should explain what you are doing
• Many programmers find it time consuming and
tedious
• Helps others understand your work
• Industry standard
– One bug for every 2000 lines of code
• Windows 2000 contains almost 50 million lines
– And fewer than 60,000 bugs
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 Documentation (continued)

// The following function was added to the program June 15, 2005
// per a request from the Marketing Department.
// It appears that reports generated by the sales() function were
// not giving the Marketing folks information about the sales in
// Asia. This new function now uses data from text files from the
// offices in Tokyo and Hong Kong. – Bob C. Twins

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 Learning the C Language
• Developed by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Laboratories in
1972
• Powerful and concise language
• UNIX was first written in assembly language and
later rewritten in C
• Assembly language
– Uses a combination of hexadecimal numbers and
expressions
• C++
– An enhancement of the C language
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 Learning the C Language (continued)

• Compiler
– Converts a text-based program (source code) into
executable or binary code
• Some C compilers can also create executable
programs in C++

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 Anatomy of a C Program

• The first computer program a C student learns

/* The famous "Hello, world!" C program */

#include <stdio.h>
/* Load the standard IO library. The library contains
functions your C program might need to call to
perform various tasks. */
main()
{
printf("Hello, world!\n\n");
}

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 Anatomy of a C Program (continued)

• Use /* and */ to comment large portions of text

• Use // for one-line comments
• #include statement
– Loads libraries that hold the commands and functions
used in your program
• Parentheses in C mean you are dealing with
functions
• main() function
– Every C program requires a main() function

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 Anatomy of a C Program (continued)

• Braces shows where a function begins and ends

• Functions can call other functions
– Parameters or arguments are optional
• \n represents a line feed

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 Declaring Variables

• A variable represents a numeric or string value

• You can declare variables at the beginning of a
program
– You must declare a variable before using it
• C supports several variable types
• Conversion specifiers tells the compiler how to
convert the values in a function

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 Declaring Variables (continued)

• Operators
– Compare values
– Perform mathematical calculations
– Types
• Mathematical operators
• Logical operators

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 Branching, Looping, and Testing in C
• Branching
main()
{
prompt(); //Call function to prompt user with a question
display(); //Call function to display graphics on screen
calculate(); //Call function to do complicated math
cleanup(); //Call function to make all variables equal to
//zero
prompt()
{
[code for prompt() function goes here]
}
display()
{
[code for display() function goes here]
}
[etc.]
}
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 Branching, Looping, and Testing in C
(continued)
• While loop
main()
{
int counter = 1; //Initialize counter variable
while (counter <= 10) //Do what's in the brackets until false
{
printf("Counter is equal to %d\n", counter);
++counter; //Increment counter by 1;
}
}

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 Branching, Looping, and Testing in C
(continued)
• Do loop
main()
{
int counter = 1; //Initialize counter variable
do
{
printf("Counter is equal to %d\n", counter);
++counter; //Increment counter by 1
} while (counter <= 10); //Do what's in the brackets until
//false
}

• For loop

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 Understanding HTML Basics
• HTML is a language used to create Web pages
• HTML files are text files
• Security professionals often need to examine Web
pages
– Be able to recognize when something looks
suspicious

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 Creating a Web Page Using HTML
• Create HTML Web page in Notepad
• View HTML Web page in a Web browser
• HTML does not use branching, looping, or testing
• HTML is a static formatting language
– Rather than a programming language
• < and > symbols denote HTML tags
– Each tag has a matching closing tag
– <HTML> and </HTML>

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 Understanding Practical Extraction
and Report Language (Perl)
• PERL
– Powerful scripting language
– Used to write scripts and programs for security
professionals

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 Background on Perl
• Developed by Larry Wall in 1987
• Can run on almost any platform
– *NIX-base OSs already have Perl installed
• Perl syntax is similar to C
• Hackers use Perl to write malware
• Security professionals use Perl to perform
repetitive tasks and conduct security monitoring

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 Understanding the Basics of Perl
• perl –h command
– Gives you a list of parameters used with perl
• perldoc
– Displays the description of a perl scripting command

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 Understanding the BLT of Perl
• Some syntax rules
– Keyword “sub” is used in front of function names
– Variables begin with the $ character
– Comment lines begin with the # character
– The & character indicates a function

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 Branching in Perl
# Perl program illustrating the branching function
# Documentation is important
# Initialize variables
$first_name = "Jimi";
$last_name = "Hendrix";
&name_best_guitarist;
sub name_best_guitarist
{
printf "%s %s %s", $first_name, $last_name, "was
the best guitarist!";
}

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 Looping in Perl
• For loop
for ($a = 1; $a <= 10; $a++)
{
print "Hello security testers!\n"
}
• While loop
$a = 1;
while ($a <=10)
{
print "Hello security testers!\n";
$a++
}
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 Testing Conditions in Perl
if (($age > 12) && ($age < 20))
{
print "You must be a know-it-all!";
}
elsif ($age > 39)
{
print "You must lie about your age!";
}
else
{
print "To be young...";
}

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 Testing Conditions in Perl (continued)
unless ($age == 100)
{
print "Still enough time to get a bachelor's
degree.";
}

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 Understanding Object-Oriented
Programming Concepts
• New programming paradigm
• There are several languages that support object-
oriented programming
– C++
– C#
– Java
– Perl 6.0
– Object Cobol

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 Components of Object-Oriented
Programming
• Classes
– Structures that hold pieces of data and functions
• The :: symbol
– Used to separate the name of a class from a
member function
– Example:
• Employee::GetEmp()

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 Components of Object-Oriented
Programming (continued)
// This is a class called Employee created in C++
class Employee
{
public:
char firstname[25];
char lastname[25];
char PlaceOfBirth[30];
[code continues]
};
void GetEmp()
{
// Perform tasks to get employee info
[program code goes here]
}
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 Summary
• Writing an algorithm and using pseudocode
– Good habits to adopt when writing computer programs
• Clear documentation of program code is essential
• C is one of the most popular programming languages
• BLT
– Branching
– Looping
– Testing
• Many C compilers available
– GNU GCC is an open-source compiler for Linux
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 Summary (continued)
• HTML
– Primary language used to create Web pages
• Perl and C programming languages
– Used to create most security tools and scripts
• Object-oriented programming
– Based on classes
• Structures containing both data and functions
• Win32 API
– Interface to the Windows operating system

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