Printf and Scanf Statements 2019

Input and Output Statements

- Formatted input and output.
Displaying Output using printf( )
 printf( ) is an output function in C used to display the content on the screen.
 For precise output formatting, every printf( ) call contains a format control string that describes
the output format.
 The format control string consists of:
 Conversion specifiers.
 Field widths.
 Precisions.
 Literal characters.
 Flags.

 Together with percent sign (%), these, form conversion specifications.

 Function printf() can perform the following formatting capabilities:
 Rounding floating-point values to an indicated number of decimal places.
 Aligning a column of numbers with decimal points appearing one above the other.
 Right-justification and left-justification of outputs.
 Inserting literal characters at precise locations in a line of output.
 Representing floating-point number in exponential format.
 Representing unsigned integers in octal and hexadecimal format.
 Displaying all types of data with fixed-size field widths and precisions
 There are various forms of printf statements.
 General form of printf( ) is: printf (format-control-string, other-arguments);
 The format-control-string describes the output format, and other-arguments (optional) correspond
to each conversion specification in the format-control-string.
 Each conversion specification begins with a percent sign (%) and ends with a conversion
specifier.
 Printing Integers - Integer is a whole number, such as 880 or –456, that contains no decimal
point.
Conversion Specifier Description
d Display a signed decimal integer
i Display a signed decimal integer (Note: Both are different in scanf() )
o Display a unsigned octal integer
u Display a unsigned decimal integer
X or x Display a unsigned hexa decimal integer

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 Printf and Scanf Statements 2019
h or l (letter l) Place before any integer conversion specifier to indicate that a short
or long integer.

 Printing Floating-point Numbers - Contains the decimal point such as 35.5 or 7456.945.

Conversion specifier Description

e or E Display a floating-point value in exponential notation.
f Display floating-point values.
Display a floating-point value in either the floating-point form f or the
g or G
exponential form e ( or E)
Place before any floating-point conversion specifier to indicate that a long
l
double floating-point value is displayed.

 Exponential notation is the computer equivalent of scientific notation used in mathematics.

For example, 150.2352 is represented in scientific notation as:
1.502352 x 102
And is represented in exponential notation as
1.502352E+02 by computer
So, 150.2352 = 1.502352 x 102 = 1.502352E+02
 E stand for exponent.
 e, E and f will output with 6 digits of precision to the right of the decimal point by default.

 Printing Strings & Characters - c and s conversion specifiers are used to print individual
characters and strings respectively.
 Conversion specifier c requires a char argument and s requires a pointer to char as an argument.
 s causes characters to be printed until a terminating NULL (‘\0’) character is encountered.

Note: % - Display the percentage character.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
printf("Printing a %% in a format control string\n");
}

Output:
Printing a % in a format control string

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 Printf and Scanf Statements 2019
 Printing With Field Widths And Precisions - A field width determines the exact size of a field
in which data is printed.
 If the field width is larger than the data being printed, the data will normally be right-justified
within that field.
 An integer representing the field width is inserted between the percent sign (%) and the
conversion specifier in the conversion specification.
 Function printf( ) also provides the ability to specify the precision with which data is printed.
 Precision has different meanings for different data types.
Note:
1. String can also b printed directly -
printf(“ literal string”);
 Literal string may be any character or content. Whatever the content included within the
double quotes will be displayed on the output screen
 Example: printf(“Welcome to India”);
Output: Welcome to India

2. Guidelines for printf

 printf should contain control string or format string in quotes.
 Control string may or may not be followed by some variables or expressions.
 To print a value it needs convention specification or access specifier to be included.
 When printf statement is executed the convention specifier or access specifier will be
replaced by its value.
 Additional characters included between the access specifiers will be maintained as it is on the
output screen.

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 Printf and Scanf Statements 2019
Inputting Values Using scanf
 Used for precise input formatting & to enter the input through the input devices like keyboard.
 Every scanf( ) function contains a format control string that describes the format of the data to be
input.
 The format control string consists of conversion specifications and literal characters.
 Function scanf() has the following input formatting capabilities
 Inputting all types of data.
 Inputting specific characters from an input stream.
 Skipping specific characters in the input stream.
 General form of scanf( ): scanf (format-control-string, other-arguments);

For example:
scanf("%e%f%g", &a, &b, &c);
 The format-control-string describes the formats of the input.
 The other-arguments are pointers to variables in which the input will be stored (i.e..,
address of the variable where input values to be stored).

 Guidelines for scanf

1. No escape sequences or additional blank spaces should be specified in the format specifiers.
Ex: scanf(“%d %f”,&a,&b); //invalid
scanf(“%d\n%f”,&a,&b); //invalid
2. & symbol is must to read the values, if not the entered value will not be stored in the variable
specified.
Ex: scanf(“%d%f”,a,b); //invalid.

4 Mr. Sukruth Gowda M A, Assistant Professor