Output single character in C

c character string-formatting
Aydya picture Aydya · Nov 21, 2008 · Viewed 275.1k times · Source

When printing a single character in a C program, must I use "%1s" in the format string? Can I use something like "%c"?

Answer

Evan Teran picture Evan Teran · Nov 21, 2008

yes, %c will print a single char:

printf("%c", 'h');

also, putchar/putc will work too. From "man putchar":

#include <stdio.h>

int fputc(int c, FILE *stream);
int putc(int c, FILE *stream);
int putchar(int c);

* fputc() writes the character c, cast to an unsigned char, to stream.
* putc() is equivalent to fputc() except that it may be implemented as a macro which evaluates stream more than once.
* putchar(c); is equivalent to putc(c,stdout).

EDIT:

Also note, that if you have a string, to output a single char, you need get the character in the string that you want to output. For example:

const char *h = "hello world";
printf("%c\n", h[4]); /* outputs an 'o' character */

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