Why c language is called middle level language ?

C is called middle level language because it actually binds the gap between a machine level language and higher level languages by providing features of both high level and low level language.

A user can use C language to do system programming (for writing operating system ) as well as Application programming ( for generating menu driven customer billing system) . That’s why it is called the middle level language.

C is referred to as middle level language as with C we are able to manipulate bits,bytes, and addresses and interact with the hardware directly.we are also able to carry out memory management functions.

So we can say , Though C lies between the elements of high level programming language and low level language It provides relatively good programming efficiency ( as compared to machine oriented language ) and relatively good machine efficiency ( as compared to high level languages ).

 

For this reasons c is called middle level language.

 

 Related post - Why is C called a structured programming language?

Features 

 

• C programming supports Inline Assembly Language programs.

 

• Using Inline assembly language feature is C we can directly access system registers.

 

• C programming is used to access memory directly using pointer.

 

• C program supports high level language features.

 

•  It is more user friendly as compare to previous languages so C programming is Middle level language.

 

 

High level language example - Ada, Modula-2,Pascal,COBOL,FOTRAN,BASIC.

Middle Level language example - JAVA,C,C++,FORTH

Low level language example - Assembler

 

Low level features of C language -

 

• C programming language supports low level inline assembly language programs.

 

• Using low level inline assembly feature of C we can directly access system register.

 

• C programming supports bit level programming which means we can modify and manipulate in bit level while programming.

 

• Using pointer , we can directly access memory.Which allows us to dynamic memory allocation.

 

 

High level features of C

 

• Program written in C are machine independent and this portable.

 

• Rich set of built in functions,data types and operators.

 

• High level constructs like if-else, do-while etc

 

• C is more user friendly and syntax's approaches to English like language.