The lifetime of a static variable in C is the same as the program's runtime. It retains its value between function calls and persists until the program terminates.

Double pointers in C are often used to create an array of pointers, allowing you to work with multiple pointers efficiently.

Utilizing memory-mapped files can reduce I/O operations and improve the performance of reading large text files. Loading the entire file into memory can lead to resource issues.

In C, members of a structure are accessed using the dot (.) operator.

Using pointers in conjunction with arrays can optimize an application by improving data access speed. Pointers can efficiently traverse and manipulate arrays, leading to faster data retrieval and processing, which is crucial when working with large datasets. This optimization benefits the application's performance.

In C, pointers can be used to pass addresses to a function. This allows functions to modify the original data.

The preprocessor directive #include is used to include a header file in a C program. It allows you to use functions and declarations from the included file in your program.

To sort a list of names in alphabetical order, the strcmp function is useful. It compares two strings and returns a value indicating their relative order. strtok is used for tokenizing strings, strchr searches for a character in a string, and strnlen provides the length of a string up to a specified limit.

Pointers to structures can be beneficial in this scenario by improving data organization. By using pointers to structures, you can efficiently manage and access student information, such as name, age, and grades, making the database more organized and accessible. This optimization helps in effective data management.

The gets() function is risky because it does not perform bounds checking and can lead to buffer overflows, potentially exposing the program to security vulnerabilities.