C Programming - Managing Input and

Output Operations

C Programming - Managing Input and Output Operations

In this tutorial you will learn about Single character input output, String input and output,
Formatted Input For Scanf, Input specifications for real number, Input specifications for a
character, Printing One Line, Conversion Strings and Specifiers, Specifier Meaning

Introduction

One of the essential operations performed in a C language programs is to provide input

values to the program and output the data produced by the program to a standard output
device. We can assign values to variable through assignment statements such as x = 5
a = 0 ; and so on. Another method is to use the Input then scanf which can be used
to read data from a key board. For outputting results we have used extensively the
function printf which sends results out to a terminal. There exists several functions in
‘C’ language that can carry out input output operations. These functions are collectively
known as standard Input/Output Library. Each program that uses standard input / out put
function must contain the statement.

# include < stdio.h >

at the beginning.

Single character input output:

The basic operation done in input output is to read a characters from the standard input
device such as the keyboard and to output or writing it to the output unit usually the
screen. The getchar function can be used to read a character from the standard input
device. The scanf can also be used to achieve the function. The getchar has the following
form.

Variable name = getchar:

Variable name is a valid ‘C’ variable, that has been declared already and that possess the
type char.
Example program :

# include < stdio.h > // assigns stdio-h header file to your program
void main ( ) // Indicates the starting point of the program.
{
char C, // variable declaration
printf (“Type one character:”) ; // message to user
C = getchar () ; // get a character from key board and
Stores it in variable C.
Printf (” The character you typed is = %c”, C) ; // output
} // Statement which displays value of C on
// Standard screen.

The putchar function which in analogus to getchar function can be used for writing
characters one at a time to the output terminal. The general form is

putchar (variable name);

Where variable is a valid C type variable that has already been declared Ex:-

Putchar ( );

Displays the value stored in variable C to the standard screen.

Program shows the use of getchar function in an interactive environment.

#include < stdio.h > // Inserts stdio.h header file into the Pgm
void main ( ) // Beginning of main function.
{
char in; // character declaration of variable in.
printf (” please enter one character”); // message to user
in = getchar ( ) ; // assign the keyboard input value to in.
putchar (in); // out put ‘in’ value to standard screen.
}

String input and output:

The gets function relieves the string from standard input device while put S outputs the
string to the standard output device. A strong is an array or set of characters.

The function gets accepts the name of the string as a parameter, and fills the string with
characters that are input from the keyboard till newline character is encountered. (That is
till we press the enter key). All the end function gets appends a null terminator as must be
done to any string and returns.

The puts function displays the contents stored in its parameter on the standard screen.

The standard form of the gets function is

gets (str)

Here str is a string variable.

The standard form for the puts character is

puts (str)

Where str is a string variable.

Eample program (Involving both gets and puts)

# include < stdio.h >

Void main ( )
{
char s [80];
printf (“Type a string less than 80 characters:”);
gets (s);
printf (“The string types is:”);
puts(s);
}

Formatted Input For Scanf:

The formatted input refers to input data that has been arranged in a particular format.
Input values are generally taken by using the scanf function. The scanf function has the
general form.

Scanf (“control string”, arg1, arg2, arg3 ………….argn);

The format field is specified by the control string and the arguments
arg1, arg2, …………….argn specifies the addrss of location where address is to be
stored.

The control string specifies the field format which includes format specifications and
optional number specifying field width and the conversion character % and also blanks,
tabs and newlines.

The Blanks tabs and newlines are ignored by compiler. The conversion character % is
followed by the type of data that is to be assigned to variable of the assignment. The field
width specifier is optional.

The general format for reading a integer number is

% x d

Here percent sign (%) denotes that a specifier for conversion follows and x is an integer
number which specifies the width of the field of the number that is being read. The data
type character d indicates that the number should be read in integer mode.

Example :

scanf (“%3d %4d”, &sum1, &sum2);

If the values input are 175 and 1342 here value 175 is assigned to sum1 and 1342 to sum
2. Suppose the input data was follows 1342 and 175.

The number 134 will be assigned to sum1 and sum2 has the value 2 because of %3d the
number 1342 will be cut to 134 and the remaining part is assigned to second variable
sum2. If floating point numbers are assigned then the decimal or fractional part is skipped
by the computer.

To read the long integer data type we can use conversion specifier % ld & % hd for short
integer.

Input specifications for real number:

Field specifications are not to be use while representing a real number therefore real
numbers are specified in a straight forward manner using % f specifier.

The general format of specifying a real number input is

Scanf (% f “, &variable);

Example:

Scanf (“%f %f % f”, &a, &b, &c);

With the input data

321.76, 4.321, 678 The values

321.76 is assigned to a , 4.321 to b & 678 to C.

If the number input is a double data type then the format specifier should be % lf instead
of %f.

Input specifications for a character.

Single character or strings can be input by using the character specifiers.

The general format is

% xc or %xs

Where C and S represents character and string respectively and x represents the field
width.
The address operator need not be specified while we input strings.

Example :

Scanf (“%C %15C”, &ch, nname):

Here suppose the input given is a, Robert then a is assigned to ch and name will be
assigned to Robert.
Printing One Line:

printf();

The most simple output statement can be produced in C’ Language by using printf
statement. It allows you to display information required to the user and also prints the
variables we can also format the output and provide text labels. The simple statement
such as

Printf (“Enter 2 numbers”);

Prompts the message enclosed in the quotation to be displayed.

A simple program to illustrate the use of printf statement:-

#include < stdio.h >

main ( )
{
printf (“Hello!”);
printf (“Welcome to the world of Engineering!”);
}

Output:

Hello! Welcome to the world of Engineering.

Both the messages appear in the output as if a single statement. If you wish to print the
second message to the beginning of next line, a new line character must be placed inside
the quotation marks.

For Example :

printf (“Hello!\n);
OR

printf (“\n Welcome to the world of Engineering”);

Conversion Strings and Specifiers:

The printf ( ) function is quite flexible. It allows a variable number of arguments, labels
and sophisticated formatting of output. The general form of the printf ( ) function is

Syntax

Printf (“conversion string”, variable list);

The conversion string includes all the text labels, escape character and conversion
specifiers required for the desired output. The variable includes all the variable to be
printed in order they are to be printed. There must be a conversion specifies after each
variable.

Specifier Meaning

%c – Print a character
%d – Print a Integer
%i – Print a Integer
%e – Print float value in exponential form.
%f – Print float value
%g – Print using %e or %f whichever is smaller
%o – Print actual value
%s – Print a string
%x – Print a hexadecimal integer (Unsigned) using lower case a – F
%X – Print a hexadecimal integer (Unsigned) using upper case A – F
%a – Print a unsigned integer.
%p – Print a pointer value
%hx – hex short
%lo – octal long
%ld – long