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A computer system consists of mainly four basic units; namely input unit, storage unit, central processing
unit and output unit. Central Processing unit further includes Arithmetic logic unit and control unit, as
shown in the figure:. A computer performs five major operations or functions irrespective of its size and
make. These are
it accepts data or instructions as input,
it stores data and instruction
it processes data as per the instructions,
it controls all operations inside a computer, and
it gives results in the form of output.
Desktop Computer System
Contents
[hide]
1 Functional Units:
2 Memory
3 Input / Output Devices:
o 3.1 Input Devices
o 3.2 Scanner
o 3.3 Output Devices:
Functional Units:
a. Input Unit: This unit is used for entering data and programs into the computer system by the user for
processing.
Basic Computer Organisation
b. Storage Unit: The storage unit is used for storing data and instructions before and after processing.
c. Output Unit: The output unit is used for storing the result as output produced by the computer after
processing.
d. Processing: The task of performing operations like arithmetic and logical operations is called
processing. The Central Processing Unit (CPU) takes data and instructions from the storage unit and
makes all sorts of calculations based on the instructions given and the type of data provided. It is then
sent back to the storage unit. CPU includes Arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and control unit (CU)
Computer Chip
Arithmetic Logic Unit: All calculations and comparisons, based on the instructions provided, are carried
out within the ALU. It performs arithmetic functions like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and
also logical operations like greater than, less than and equal to etc.
Control Unit: Controlling of all operations like input, processing and output are performed by control unit.
It takes care of step by step processing of all operations in side the computer.
Memory
Computers memory can be classified into two types; primary memory and secondary memory
RAM
a. Primary Memory can be further classified as RAM and ROM.
RAM or Random Access Memory is the unit in a computer system. It is the place in a computer where
the operating system, application programs and the data in current use are kept temporarily so that they
can be accessed by the computers processor. It is said to be volatile since its contents are accessible
only as long as the computer is on. The contents of RAM are no more available once the computer is
turned off.
ROM or Read Only Memory is a special type of memory which can only be read and contents of which
are not lost even when the computer is switched off. It typically contains manufacturers instructions.
Among other things, ROM also stores an initial program called the bootstrap loader whose function is to
start the operation of computer system once the power is turned on.
b. Secondary Memory
RAM is volatile memory having a limited storage capacity. Secondary/auxiliary memory is storage other
than the RAM. These include devices that are peripheral and are connected and controlled by the
computer to enable permanent storage of programs and data.
CD ROM
Secondary storage devices are of two types; magnetic and optical. Magnetic devices include hard disks
and optical storage devices are CDs, DVDs, Pen drive, Zip drive etc.
Hard Disk
Hard disks are made up of rigid material and are usually a stack of metal disks sealed in a box. The hard
disk and the hard disk drive exist together as a unit and is a permanent part of the computer where data
and programs are saved. These disks have storage capacities ranging from 1GB to 80 GB and more.
Hard disks are rewritable.
Compact Disk
Compact Disk (CD) is portable disk having data storage capacity between 650-700 MB. It can hold large
amount of information such as music, full-motion videos, and text etc. CDs can be either read only or read
write type.
CD Drive
Digital Video Disk
Digital Video Disk (DVD) is similar to a CD but has larger storage capacity and enormous clarity.
Depending upon the disk type it can store several Gigabytes of data. DVDs are primarily used to store
music or movies and can be played back on your television or the computer too. These are not rewritable.
Hard Disk
Input / Output Devices:
These devices are used to enter information and instructions into a computer for storage or processing
and to deliver the processed data to a user. Input/Output devices are required for users to communicate
with the computer. In simple terms, input devices bring information INTO the computer and output devices
bring information OUT of a computer system. These input/output devices are also known as peripherals
since they surround the CPU and memory of a computer system.
Input Devices
An input device is any device that provides input to a computer. There are many input devices, but the
two most common ones are a keyboard and mouse. Every key you press on the keyboard and every
movement or click you make with the mouse sends a specific input signal to the computer.
Keyboard
Keyboard: The keyboard is very much like a standard typewriter keyboard with a few additional keys.
The basic QWERTY layout of characters is maintained to make it easy to use the system. The additional
keys are included to perform certain special functions. These are known as function keys that vary in
number from keyboard to keyboard.
Mouse: A device that controls the movement of the cursor or pointer on a display screen. A mouse is a
small object you can roll along a hard and flat surface. Its name is derived from its shape, which looks a
bit like a mouse. As you move the mouse, the pointer on the display screen moves in the same direction.
Trackball: A trackball is an input device used to enter motion data into computers or other electronic
devices. It serves the same purpose as a mouse, but is designed with a moveable ball on the top, which
can be rolled in any direction.
Touchpad: A touch pad is a device for pointing (controlling input positioning) on a computer display
screen. It is an alternative to the mouse. Originally incorporated in laptop computers, touch pads are also
being made for use with desktop computers. A touch pad works by sensing the users finger movement
and downward pressure. Touch Screen: It allows the user to operate/make selections by simply
touching the display screen. A display screen that is sensitive to the touch of a finger or stylus. Widely
used on ATM machines, retail point-of-sale terminals, car navigation systems, medical monitors and
industrial control panels.
Mouse
Light Pen: Light pen is an input device that utilizes a light-sensitive detector to select objects on a
display screen.
Magnetic ink character recognition (MICR): MICR can identify character printed with a special ink that
contains particles of magnetic material. This device particularly finds applications in banking industry.
Optical mark recognition (OMR): Optical mark recognition, also called mark sense reader is a
technology where an OMR device senses the presence or absence of a mark, such as pencil mark. OMR
is widely used in tests such as aptitude test.
Bar code reader: Bar-code readers are photoelectric scanners that read the bar codes or vertical zebra
strips marks, printed on product containers. These devices are generally used in super markets,
bookshops etc.
Light Pen
Scanner
Scanner is an input device that can read text or illustration printed on paper and translates the
information into a form that the computer can use. A scanner works by digitizing an image. (Fig.
1.7)
Scanner
Output Devices:
Output device receives information from the CPU and presents it to the user in the desired from. The
processed data, stored in the memory of the computer is sent to the output unit, which then converts
it into a form that can be understood by the user. The output is usually produced in one of the two
ways on the display device, or on paper (hard copy).
Monitor: is often used synonymously with computer screen or display. Monitor is an output
device that resembles the television screen (fig. 1.8). It may use a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) to
display information. The monitor is associated with a keyboard for manual input of characters and
displays the information as it is keyed in. It also displays the program or application output. Like the
television, monitors are also available in different sizes. Printer: Printers are used to produce paper
(commonly known as hard copy) output. Based on the technology used, they can be classified as
Impact or Non-impact printers.
Impact printers use the typewriting printing mechanism wherein a hammer strikes the paper through
a ribbon in order to produce output. Dot-matrix and Character printers fall under this category.
Monitor
Non-impact printers do not touch the paper while printing. They use chemical, heat or electrical
signals to etch the symbols on paper. Inkjet, Deskjet, Laser, Thermal printers fall under this category
of printers.
Plotter: Plotters are used to print graphical output on paper. It interprets computer commands and
makes line drawings on paper using multi colored automated pens. It is capable of producing graphs,
drawings, charts, maps etc. Facsimile (FAX): Facsimile machine, a device that can send or receive
pictures and text over a telephone line. Fax machines work by digitizing an image.
Plotter
Sound cards and Speaker(s): An expansion board that enables a computer to manipulate and
output sounds. Sound cards are necessary for nearly all CD-ROMs and have become commonplace
on modern personal computers. Sound cards enable the computer to output sound through speakers
connected to the board, to record sound input from a microphone connected to the computer, and
manipulate sound stored on a disk.
C is a general-purpose, high-level language that was originally developed by Dennis M. Ritchie to develop the UNIX
operating system at Bell Labs. C was originally first implemented on the DEC PDP-11 computer in 1972.
In 1978, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie produced the first publicly available description of C, now known as the
K&R standard.
The UNIX operating system, the C compiler, and essentially all UNIX applications programs have been written in C.
The C has now become a widely used professional language for various reasons.
Easy to learn
Structured language
It produces efficient programs.
It can handle low-level activities.
It can be compiled on a variety of computer platforms.
Facts about C
C was invented to write an operating system called UNIX.
C is a successor of B language which was introduced around 1970
The language was formalized in 1988 by the American National Standard Institute (ANSI).
The UNIX OS was totally written in C by 1973.
Today C is the most widely used and popular System Programming Language.
Most of the state-of-the-art softwares have been implemented using C.
Today's most popular Linux OS and RBDMS MySQL have been written in C.
Why to use C?
C was initially used for system development work, in particular the programs that make-up the operating system. C
was adopted as a system development language because it produces code that runs nearly as fast as code written in
assembly language. Some examples of the use of C might be:
Operating Systems
Language Compilers
Assemblers
Text Editors
Print Spoolers
Network Drivers
Modern Programs
Databases
Language Interpreters
Utilities
C Programs
A C program can vary from 3 lines to millions of lines and it should be written into one or more text files with
extension ".c"; for example, hello.c. You can use "vi", "vim" or any other text editor to write your C program into a
file.
This tutorial assumes that you know how to edit a text file and how to write source code inside a program file.
C Programming An Overview
By Exforsys | on March 2, 2006 | Comments: 24
C Language
This tutorial will give you an overview of the C programming language. We will cover some of the history of
C, why people use it, where it is being used, and the basic structure of programs in C.
History
The C language was developed at AT&T Bell Labs in the early 1970s by Dennis Ritchie. It was based on an
earlier Bell Labs language B which itself was based on the BCPL language. Since early on, C has been used
with the Unix operating system, but it is not bound to any particular O/S or hardware.
C has gone through some revisions since its introduction. The American National Standards Institute
developed the first standardized specification for the language in 1989, commonly referred to as C89. Before
that, the only specification was an informal one from the book The C Programming Language by Brian
Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.
The next major revision was published in 1999. This revision introduced some new features, data types and
some other changes. This is referred to as the C99 standard.
Advantages
Here are some advantages of programming in C:
C is a general purpose programming language, meaning that it is not limited to any one specific kind of
programming. This is different from languages like COBOL which was built for business applications,
and FORTRAN for scientific calculations. You can write all sorts of software using C. .
C is not a very high-level language. A high-level language tries to isolate the programmer from the
hardware as much as possible. In contrast, C allows you to directly access memory addresses, create bit
fields and structures and map them to memory, perform bitwise operations and so on. C facilitates
hardware programming. .
Not being high-level also means there is little overhead; it is highly efficient and provides fast execution
speed. .
There are C language compilers and development tools available for many different platforms from
small embedded systems to large mainframes and supercomputers. .
C has been around for almost 40 years. In that time there has much software written in C. If there is
some functionality you need in a C program you are writing, chances are someone has already written
it. It may even be available for free.
Uses of C
In spite of its age, C is still being heavily used in industry. Several surveys have placed C as one of the most
popular languages currently in use.
C is a very good choice for writing software to control hardware. The Unix (and derivatives) operating
systems kernel is written in C (with some small pieces in assembly). Most firmware and device drivers are
written in C as well.
C is also used in many real-time systems programming. While the language itself does not have any real-time
features, it can be combined with platform-specific libraries or libraries that implement the POSIX real-time
interfaces. C is a very efficient language that does not require many supporting libraries to run and does not
have much overhead, which is desirable in low-memory embedded systems. Combining real-time libraries
with C give it the timing constraints and other features needed for real-time programming.
Because C is efficient and fast it is sometimes used as the development language of other programming
languages. Languages like PHP and Perl have been written in C. Many computationally intensive libraries and
applications like MATLAB have been written in it too, for the same reason.
We have only talked about a few specialized domains where C is used. In addition to those, there are many
other applications of all kinds that are written in C.
Structure of C Program
In this section we will take a look at the structure of a C program. Remember that many of the concepts, terms
and syntax shown in this section will be reviewed in detail in other tutorials. This is only an introduction.
A C program may be made up of one or more files called source files. There is a kind of source file that is
used to define constants, macros, function prototypes, type definitions, etc. called a header file. Header files
are basically used to share things between other source files. By convention, source file names have the
extension .c and header file names have the extension .h.
How you enter a C statements into one or more files, how you run the compiler on those files, and how you run
the resulting executable is completely dependent on what system you are using and what tools you have. Most
systems have some kind of text editor for creating and modifying files.
Each compiler is different, you must consult your compilers documentation for information on how to run it
and how to set different options. There are also Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) that let you edit,
compile, run and sometimes debug a program, all with a friendly user interface. The examples in this tutorial
were written using a text editor on a Linux system and compiled with the gcc compiler.
Hello World
Let us look at a very basic C program. We will write the canonical Hello World program in a file called
hello.c. Here are the contents of file hello.c:
#include
int main(void)
{
printf("Hello Worldn");
return 0;
}
I have added line numbers here to make it easier to refer to specific lines; the actual C source code does not
have line numbers. We can run the C compiler on this program (the $ is the command prompt, what I type is in
red):
$ gcc hello.c
The compiler does not give any errors and has created an executable file called a.out. As mentioned, how
you run the compiler on your system and what executable file it creates depends on your system and compiler
or IDE. We run the program and get the output:
$ ./a.out Hello World!
Let us take a look at this example in detail, starting with how the file is compiled.
A C compiler translates source files into machine instructions and then links them with any libraries needed to
run the program, creating an executable file. When a compiler processes a source file, one of the first things it
does is carry out the preprocessor directives. These are various commands that control how the compiler
processes the source file.
All preprocessor commands start with the hash (#) mark. We will take a more detailed look at preprocessor
commands in another tutorial, but for now we will talk about the include directive seen on the first line of
hello.c. This directive gives the name of another source file to the compiler to include in this file. The file
name is surrounded by double quotes or angle brackets.
When the compiler sees this command it switches processing to the named file, then back to the original file. It
is like saying to the compiler include the contents of the file stdio.h here. Typically the include directives are
put near the top of a source file and are used to include header files.
The stdio.h file is a standard header file included with all C compilers. We will talk about header files more a
little later.
C is a procedural language. A procedural language can break a program up into several procedures (also called
subroutines), and each procedure can issue commands and invoke other procedures. Though Cs procedures
are called functions, that does not make C a functional programming language that term is used for
another type of programming paradigm. In this tutorial we will use Cs terminology and call procedures
functions.
A C program should have one function called main. When the program is run this is the function that gets
executed first. On line 3 of hello.c we have our main function. C functions can take parameters (also called
arguments) and return values, similar to functions in math. On line 3 the int signifies that the main function
returns an integer value. The void indicates that main does not take any parameters.
There are two classic ways to declare the main function. One is as seen on line 3, the other is like this:
int main( int argc, char *argv[] )
This form is used when you wish to pass parameters to the main function. In addition to these, a C compiler
may allow other forms of main(). A couple of common ones are:
void main(void)
void main( int ac, char *av[] )
These are the same as the two main() declarations seen before except they return a void that is, they do not
return any value.
The body of a function is placed between curly braces { } like on lines 4 and 7 in hello.c. In this program the
body of the main() function only calls function printf() to print the string Hello World! and a new line (the n
at the end of the string) to the output screen on line 5, and returns the value 0 on line 6. printf() is a standard
function used to write formatted output to the screen or whatever output device you have. This function is in
the standard libraries that the C compiler links with programs. We will talk more about the printf() function
below.
In C, every statement is terminated by a semicolon (;) character. A compound statement (also called a block) is
a sequence of statements inside curly braces { }. As you have seen, the body of a function is a compound
statement. In addition, most places that accept a single statement can also accept a compound statement, such
as after the if, while, case statements.
In a C source file, by convention the statements in between curly braces are indented by a certain amount of
space. You can see that lines 5 and 6 of hello.c above have been indented with a tab. This is only to make the
code easier to read for people, it is not required by the compiler. The compiler ignores white-space (spaces,
tabs, new lines) unless it occurs in a character or string. For example the statement:
sum = a+b;
could have written like this:
sum
=
a +
b ;
The amount to indent statements inside a block is up to you; some people indent a tab stop, others indent 2 or 4
spaces, it is just whatever you prefer.
Comments
You can put comments inside a C program in two ways. The first way is a comment block. The sequence /*
introduces a comment block and the */ sequence ends it. All text inside those sequences is ignored by the
compiler. The second way is to use a double slash //. The text from the double slash to the end of the line is
ignored. Here are some examples:
#include void main(void)
{
/* this is a comment */
// this is another comment printf("This is printed.n"); /* this is not */
/*
this is a
comment over
multiple lines.
*/ printf("/* This is not a comment */n"); // this is a comment
}
The output of this program is:
This is printed.
/* This is not a comment */
Lines 7 and 13 show that you can mix statements and comments on the same line. Lines 8-12 show a comment
block that spans multiple lines. Line 13 shows that you cannot have a comment inside a string (a string is a
sequence characters in double quotes), because the comment is included in the string as shown in the output.
Declarations
In C, every variable or function has a type a kind of value that it can hold. Some common types are int (for
holding integers), char (characters) and double (high precision real numbers). A variable must be declared
before it is used. Let us look at some declarations:
int number;
double e = 2.71828;
char hello[] = { 'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '' };
This shows the general pattern of a variable declaration a type name followed by the variable name and
optional initial value. The first line declares a variable called number that can hold integers. The second line
declares e as a real number and initializes it to the value 2.71828. The third declares hello as an array (the
square brackets [] denote an array) of characters and initializes it to the characters H, e, l, l, o and the null
character.
Every variable has a scope a region of the program where the variable is visible to the compiler and can be
used. A variable declared inside a block has a scope within that block. A variable declared in the arguments to
a function is visible only inside that function. If a variable is declared outside of any block or function, it is
said to have file scope it is visible from the point it is declared to the end of the file.
When a variable is referenced, the compiler will look for that variable starting from the current block and work
outward to any enclosing blocks and finally to file scope variables. This implies that a variable in the current
block with the same name as one in an outer block or file scope will hide the outer one. Let us see an example
that will hopefully make these concepts clear:
#include int n = 99;
void print_n( n ) int n;
{ printf( "print_n first printf, n = %dn", n );
{ int n = 2; printf( "print_n second printf, n = %dn", n );
{ int n = 3; printf( "print_n third printf, n = %dn", n );
} printf( "print_n fourth printf, n = %dn", n );
} printf( "print_n fifth printf, n = %dn", n );
}
void main(void)
{ printf("in main, n = %dn", n ); print_n( 1 ); printf("back in main, n = %dn", n );
}
The output of this program follows:
in main, n = 99 print_n first printf, n = 1 print_n second printf, n = 2 print_n third printf,
n = 3 print_n fourth printf, n = 2 print_n fifth printf, n = 1
back in main, n = 99
The example defines a file scope variable n on line 3, and a function print_n() that takes one integer argument
called n. When main() is run, it first prints the value of n (line 27). Since there is no n defined in main() the
compiler looks outside of the function and finds the file scope n on line 3. As you see from the output it has
value 99, because it was initialized with that value on line 3.
Then main() calls the print_n() function and passes it the value 1. This initializes the n parameter of print_n()
declared on line 6 with the value 1. This n now hides the file scope n declared on line 3. It is important to note
that this is temporary; the original ns value is still there, it is just hidden by this new n. Line 8 prints the value
of n, which you can see is 1.
Line 10 introduces a new block and line 11 declares another variable n and initializes it to 2. This variable n
now hides the one declared on line 6. Line 12 prints the value of n again, but now it refers to the n on line 11,
which has the value 2. Lines 14-17 repeat the process by introducing another block with another n.
In the remaining printf() calls you can see that once a block ends, any variables declared inside that block
disappear as well. If any variables in a block hid other variables, those hidden ones are visible again once the
block ends. For example, on line 19, the n variable refers to the one declared on line 11 which is no longer
hidden by the declaration on line 15.
You may have noticed that in this example the parameter for function print_n() is declared on a different line.
C allows you to declare the types of the parameters for a function inside the parentheses or on separate
statements before the { brace. For example, this function definition:
int compute( double n, long y, char * str )
{
// do something here
}
is the same as this one:
int compute( n, y, str )
double n;
long y;
char* str;
{
// do something here
}
Function Prototypes
Function Prototypes Just like variables need to be declared before being used, functions should also be
declared before being called. Unlike variables however, the compiler will still allow you to call a function
without declaring it, because the compiler will make some assumptions about the called function. However, if
those assumptions are wrong you will get bad results, or worse, your program will crash. Let us take a look at
an example. This time the program will be split between two files file1.c and file2.c:
/*
* file1.c
*/
void main()
{ int m = 1; int n = 2;
add( m, n );
}
/*
* file2.c
*/
#include
void add( double a, double b )
{
printf("%g + %g = %gn", a, b, a+b );
}
In file1.c in main() we simply call a function called add() and pass it two integer parameters. In file2.c on lines
6-9 we define the add() function as returning nothing (void) and taking two double parameters. It just prints the
values of the parameters and the result of adding them. When we compile these files and run the program we
get:
$ gcc file1.c file2.c
$ ./a.out
4.24399e-314 + 1.73554e-305 = 1.73554e-305
We expected the output to be 1 + 2 = 3. Why did we get these strange results? It is because when the
compiler processes file1.c it knows nothing about the add() function. It does not know that add() takes two
double parameters, not ints. So it assumes that passing two int arguments to add() is OK. When add() is
executed it expects double values for a and b, but since it was passed ints the values of a and b are garbage. We
can fix this by declaring a prototype of the add() function before calling it in file1.c. Prototypes tell the
compiler what a function returns, and how many arguments it takes and the arguments types. We will add a
prototype for the
add() function in file1.c:
/*
* file1.c
*/
void add( double, double );
void main()
{
int m = 1;
int n = 2;
add( m, n );
}
The prototype is on line 4. It tells the compiler that the add() function takes two double arguments and returns
void. Now when file1.c is compiled, when add() is called on line 11 the compiler knows to convert the ints to
doubles before calling add(). Now we get the correct output when the program is run: 1 + 2 = 3
Prototypes are typically put in header files. For a tiny program like this it is not really necessary, but for larger
programs it is a good way to organize things. Let us move the add() prototype into a header file just to see how
it is done. Create a file file2.h with the prototype and include that file from both file1.c and file2.c.
/*
* file1.c
*/
#include "file2.h"
void main()
{
int m = 1;
int n = 2;
add( m, n );
}
/*
* file2.h
*/
void add( double, double );
/*
* file2.c
*/
#include
#include "file2.h"
void add( double a, double b )
{
printf("%g + %g = %gn", a, b, a+b );
}
Compiling and running the program gives the same output:
$ gcc file1.c file2.c
$ ./a.out
1 + 2 = 3
Note that we did not have to specify the header file to gcc. It is included when the other files are compiled.
You can see that in all the previous examples in this tutorial, anywhere we used the printf() function we
included the standard I/O header file stdio.h. That file contains the prototype for printf() and various other
functions, as well as type definitions, constants and other things.
Printing
In this section we will take a more detailed look at the printf() function that you have already seen used in
several examples. It is one of the main ways to display output in a C program.
The printf() function is unusual in that it can take a variable number and types of arguments. The first
argument to printf() is the format string. This is always required. It tells printf() what to print and how to print
it. The second and further arguments are dependent on the format string.
The format string can contain conversion specifications. These are sequences of characters beginning with a %
that tell printf() what to convert and how to print it. For example, the %d conversion specification tells
printf() to convert an int argument to a string representing its decimal value. Each conversion specification
applies to the next argument to printf(). Let us see how this works:
#include
void main()
{
printf("second printf argument is %d, third is %dn", 12, 34 );
}
The output of this program is: second printf argument is 12, third is 34
As you can see, the first %d used the second argument to printf() and the second %d used the third argument.
Both of those arguments are integer constants that are converted to ints, then passed to printf(). The printf()
function has many conversion specifiers. Here are some of them, what arguments they expect and how they
appear when printed:
Specifier Expected type Printed as
d, i int decimal number
o unsigned int octal number
u unsigned int decimal number
x, X unsigned int hexadecimal number
e, E double [-]d.dddedd where d is a decimal digit and [-] means a minus sign
is printed if the value is negative.
f, F double [-]ddd.ddd
g, G double esentially acts as a f or e specifier, whichever is more compact.
c char a single character
s const char * a string
% none prints a single % character.
With each conversion specifier you can also give a width, a precision and a justification. These are specified as
a numeric width followed by a period, then by a numeric precision, between the % and the conversion
specifier. For example %20.3f specifies a width of 20 and a precision of 3 for a double argument.
The width gives the minimum number of characters to print (but does not specify the maximum) when
converting. You can put a - character before the width to left justify the output; otherwise it is right justified.
The precision value is used in different ways for different specifiers. For the %f and %e specifiers it gives the
number of places after the decimal point. For %d the precision gives the number of digits to print (it is padded
with zeroes if necessary) and for %s is gives the maximum number of characters to print.
Let us look at some examples. This program prints different types of variables with a field width, precision and
justification:
#include
void main()
{
char c = 'x';
int i = 1234;
double d = 4.982761036e+3;
char *s = "This is a character string";
/* default */
printf("Defaultn");
printf("|1234567890123456789012345678901234567890|n");
printf("|%c|n", c );
printf("|%d|n", i );
printf("|%f|n", d );
printf("|%s|n", s );
/* right justified */
printf("nRight Justifiedn");
printf("|1234567890123456789012345678901234567890|n");
printf("|%20c|n", c );
printf("|%20d|n", i );
printf("|%20f|n", d );
printf("|%20s|n", s );
/* left justified */
printf("nLeft Justifiedn");
printf("|1234567890123456789012345678901234567890|n");
printf("|%-20c|n", c );
printf("|%-20f|n", d );
/* precision without width */
printf("nPrecision without widthn");
printf("|1234567890123456789012345678901234567890|n");
printf("|%.5d|n", i );
printf("|%.5f|n", d );
printf("|%.5s|n", s );
/* both width and precision */
printf("nPrecision and widthn");
printf("|1234567890123456789012345678901234567890|n");
printf("|%20.5d|n", i );
printf("|%20.5f|n", d );
printf("|%20.5s|n", s );
}
The output of this program is:
Default
|1234567890123456789012345678901234567890|
|x|
|1234|
|4982.761036|
|This is a character string|
Right Justified
|1234567890123456789012345678901234567890|
| x|
| 1234|
| 4982.761036|
|This is a character string|
Left Justified
|1234567890123456789012345678901234567890|
|x |
|4982.761036 |
Precision without width
|1234567890123456789012345678901234567890|
|01234|
|4982.76104|
|This |
Precision and width
|1234567890123456789012345678901234567890|
| 01234|
| 4982.76104|
| This |
Lines 12-17 print the character, integer, real number and string with the default formatting. Lines 20-25 print
them right justified in a field 20 characters wide. Since the width only gives the minimum width, the string
which is 26 characters long overflows the field. Lines 28-31 print the character and real number left justified in
a field 20 characters wide.
Lines 34-38 print the integer, real number and the string with a precision of 5 specified. For the integer you can
see that a 0 has been added to the number. The real numbers fractional part .761036 is rounded to .76104 to
give it 5 digits after the decimal point. And for the string the precision gives the number of characters to print,
which results in This .