Introduction to Storage Classes in C

What is a storage class?

A storage class tells the features of a variable. There are four main features that a storage class defines:

1. Storage:  where would the variable be stored.
2. Default value:  what would be the default value of a variable.
3. Scope:  which parts of the program can access the variable’s value.
4. Lifetime:  how long would the variable exist.

Why is it important to define a storage class?

To fully define a variable, we need to specify its storage class. You might wonder why we didn’t specify the storage class when we previously defined variables. The reason is that depending on where the variable is defined, the compiler automatically assigns a default storage class. We will learn more about this later in detail.

What are the different storage classes in C?

There are four storage classes in C:

1. Automatic storage class
2. Register storage class
3. Static storage class
4. External storage class

In the upcoming tutorials, we will explore each storage class in greater detail.