COMP2113 Programming Technologies / ENGG1340 Computer Programming II

Module 10. C programming (Part 1) – printf() and scanf()

Objectives

At the end of this self-learning lab, you should be able to:

• Point out some basic differences between C and C++.
• Write simple C programs that can get user input and display output on screen with
proper format.

Note that C: We will be using the C11 standard, so make sure that your compiler option is set
appropriately. We suggest to to use the following command to compile your C program:
gcc -pedantic-errors -std=c11 your_program.c

Section 1. Background

• The C programming language is a predecessor of C++. We learn this older language

mainly for two reasons.
o C is a more low-level language and less functionality is provided. E.g., there is no
classes or STL. In return, the programs are usually faster than their C++
counterpart.
o A lot of existing systems like Linux and Unix use C extensively. For the
operating systems and networking area, many libraries are available in C only.
• This chapter gives a brief introduction to C. You will get familiar with it once you
study the courses operating systems and networking.

Some history

• The C programming language was designed by Dennis Ritchie

at Bell Laboratories in the early 1970s.
• The C language was standardized in 1989 by ANSI (American
National Standards Institute) known as ANSI C.
• C programming language became International standard (ISO)
in 1990 which was adopted by ANSI and is known as C89.
• As part of the normal evolution process the standard was updated in 1995 (C95) and
1999 (C99).

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 • C++ extends C to include support for Object Oriented Programming and other
features that facilitate large software development projects.
o In other word, a valid C program is also a valid C++ program.
o However, the reverse is not true, because some functionality used in C++ is
not available in C.

Section 2. Hello World

• Let’s browse to ~/module10/

$ cd module10
• Consider the file hello.c
$ vi hello.c

Code explanations:
• First of all, we usually name the source code of a C program with extension “.c”.
• Commenting is the same as C++ (i.e., you can use // and /* */ ) for marking
comments in a C program.

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• The preprocessing directive #include <stdio.h> stands for standard I/O.
<iostream> is not present in C.
• NO namespace in C: We do not need to use the namespace std, since there is no
namespace in C.

• printf() instead of cout - In C we use the printf() function to print a string.

Objects like cout, cin and endl, which are part of the <iostream> library, are not
available in C.
• As there is no endl, we use the escape character “\n” to signify the newline in the
output string.

• To compile the program, use the gcc command. It will compile the source file
hello.c and generate the executable named hello. Let’s skip
“-pedantic-errors -std=c11” here for simplicity.

• As a remark, any C program is also a C++ program, so you can also compile a C
program using the g++ compiler. Again let’s skip “-pedantic-errors
-std=c11” here for simplicity.

• Let’s try to compile the program using gcc.

$ gcc -pedantic-errors -std=c11 hello.c –o hello
• Run the code, simply the same as running a C++ executable.
$ ./hello
Hello World!

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• For illustration purpose, let’s try to compile the program using g++.
$ g++ -pedantic-errors -std=c11 hello.c –o hello
• Run the code, it should work as expected ☺. Easy ☺
$ ./hello
Hello World!

Section 3. printf() for output

• As we have seen, printing a string can be done by printf() and passing a string literal
as the input parameter. The definition of the printf() function is included in the
<stdio.h> header file.

• To print the value of a variable, we include the corresponding conversion specifiers

inside the string literal and supply the variables inside the printf() function.
• As an example, the following function prints the value of the int variable a on screen.

• The %d is called the conversion specifier for integer values.

• The value of the variable a (an int variable) will be inserted in the conversion specifier
%d in the string literal. Therefore the output is “The value of a is 10.”
• The following table shows some popular conversion specifiers.

Variable type Conversion specifier

int %d
float %f
double %f
char %c

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 String %s
Removing trailing zeros for float and double %g
• Please note that the table is not a complete list of all conversion specifiers, please refer to
the following URL if you want to output variables of various types.
http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/cstdio/scanf/
• Let’s consider output1.c as an illustration of the use of printf().
$ vi output1.c

Code explanations:
• Reminded that the preprocessing directive that include input and output handling in C is
#include <stdio.h> (NOT <iostream>). And there is no namespace in C.
• Multiple conversion specifiers printed in order
• In this example we will print “Input 1 2 -10.500000” . It is because we have three
conversion specifiers in order : %d %d and %f, and in the value part we have a, b,c:
o The value of int variable a will be printed in the position of the first specifier %d.
o The value of int variable b will be printed in the position of the second specifier %d.
o The value of double variable c will be printed in the position of the third
specifier %f.
• From this example we learn that we can include more than one specifiers inside the string
literal, and the specifiers may appear in the middle of the string literal.
• We can provide an expression in the value part, but the conversion specifier has to
match the result of the expression.
• In this case the expression is a+b+c, which is int + int + double, the result will be
a double value, therefore we use the %f conversion specifier to print it in the output
string.
• Let’s try to compile the program and run it.
$ gcc -pedantic-errors -std=c11 output1.c –o output1
$ ./output1
1 2 -10.500000

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Their sum = -7.500000
• Note that %f prints 6 digits after the decimal place; we will see how we can remove those
trailing zeros later.

• What happen if we use the wrong conversion specifier? Let’s try to see it if we change the
3rd conversion specifier to %d (an integer specifier), which is used to display a double
value (Note: c is a double type variable).
printf( "Input %d %d %d\n", a, b, c );
• Let’s try to compile the program and run it again. What will be display?
$ gcc -pedantic-errors -std=c11 output1.c –o output1
$ ./output1
1 2 0
Their sum = -7.500000
• As you notice, C is pretty primitive in outputing values on screen, and it is important to
use the conversion specifier that matches the data type in C to display the right value.

• Let’s try to update the conversion specifier for the sum of a,b,c from %f to %g to see
the effect.
printf( "Input %d %d %g\n", a, b, c );
printf( "Their sum = %g\n", a+b+c );
• Compile the program and run it. What will be displayed?
$ gcc output1.c –o output1
$ ./output1
1 2 -10.5
Their sum = -7.5

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• Note that the conversion specifier does not change the value of the variable. It just
indicates how the data stored in the variable should be displayed.

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Section 4. No string class in C

• Note that C does not have a string class . A string in C is simply an array of char.
• Consider the file output2.c that shows the printing of the content of a char array.
$ vi output2.c

Code explanations:
• There is no string class in C, we can only use an array of char to represent string
values.
o In this example we define name as an array of char.
o Same as C++, when we initialize the array variable in its declaration, we can
choose not to specify the length of the array. After the line char name[] =
"Alan"; we have the following content for the name array.

o Note that “\0” is the null character that signify the end of the string.
o We will have more discussions on C-string in the next part.
• The %s conversion specifier means to print a string value of a char array, therefore we
can supply a char array name to match %s.
o The printf() function prints the array content of the name variable, and when it
reaches “\0” it understands that is the end of the string and stops outputting.
• Let’s try to compile the program and run it.
$ gcc -pedantic-errors -std=c11 output2.c –o output2
$ ./output2
Alan is 20 years old and weights 60.5 kg

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• The printf() function supports a number of advanced features.
o For example, you can specify the width in which the data is printed by inserting an
integer in the middle of the specifier.
o If the width is larger than the actual length of the variable, the variable will be printed
in a right-justified manner.
• Consider the file output3.c as an illustration.
$ vi output3.c

Code explanations:
• We define two char arrays p1 and p2, and initialize the two arrays’s values as “Alan”
and “Ben”, respectively.
• We print the header row, since the name of the three columns are three string values (i.e.,
“Name”, “Age” and “Weight”), we use “%s %s %s” as the conversion specifier.
• We use “%8s %8s %8s” to format the width of the column, i.e., each column will be of
width of 8 characters. Therefore the first column will have the Name printed
right-justified in the column of width 8 characters.
Question: What should be the conversion specifiers in so that the data of Alan and
Ben will be printed in columns with 8 characters width and in right-justified manner?
• Compile and run output3.c
$ gcc output3.c –o output3
$ ./output3
123456789012345678901234567890
Name Age Weight
Alan 9 30
Ben 30 40.25

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o Answer: “%8s %8d %8f”. Please try.
o Note that the values printed are right justified in the column of 8-characters wide (the
extra character in between each column is due to the space between two specifiers.).

• C provides the scanf() function to read an input.

• We need to use the conversion specifiers to indicate the type of variable we are reading.
• Then we provide the addresses of the variables that will store the value.
• Consider the file input1.c as an illustration.
$ vi input1.c

Code explanations:
• The scanf() function is used to get
user input (just like cin in C++).
However the use of the scanf()
function is a bit more complicated
than cin.
• The conversion specifiers in
scanf() are “%d%f”, which means
that we will first read in an integer
value, and then read in a float value.
The two values will be stored in variables a and b respectively.
• With this sequence of specifiers, the first input variable must be an int type variable,
and the second variable must be a float type variable. The order has to be matched.
• Note that there is no space between the conversion specifiers inside scanf().
• Reminded that we need to pass in the addresses of the variables a and b to scanf(),
that is &a and &b, respectively. By passing the address it act likes pass by reference so
that the value read from user input is updated to the variables a and b that we pass in.
Important! This is the C-style pass by reference technique, which we have to pass in
the address of the memory cell that contain the value of the variable using the &
operator when we call the scanf() function.
• We use %g conversion specifier to output the result of a*b to remove the trailing zeros.
• Compile and run input1.c
$ gcc -pedantic-errors -std=c11 input1.c –o input1
$ ./input1

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 Enter an int and a float: 11 12.5
Their product = 137.5

• There are many alternatives to read in string into a char array in C.

• In the following simplest approach, we define a char array variable that is large enough
to store the string value, and use scanf() to read in user input into the char array.
• Consider the file input2.c as an illustration.
$ vi input2.c

Code explanations:
• We define name as an array of char, the array contains 100 slots (Like C++, we must
provide the size of the array if we do not initialize the array’s content in the declaration).
• We use the %s conversion specifier to indicate we are reading a string value into the
char array, scanf() will append a null character “\0” at the end of the string.
• Important technical note: Note that the second parameter to scanf() is name but not
&name because name is an array. name is actually a pointer that stores the address of
the first slot of the char array. Therefore we do not need to use the address-of operator
“&” when printing an array with scanf().
Yes it is pretty confusing but this is the syntax requirement of C programming language :P
• Compile and run input2.c
$ gcc -pedantic-errors -std=c11 input2.c –o input2
$ ./input2
What is your name? Chim
Hello Chim!

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Checkpoint 10.1 (Please submit your answer to Moodle.)

Write a C program that determines some of the results of an election using the largest
remainder method.
The largest remainder method is used in Hong Kong Legislative Council Election.
1. Candidates contest the election in the form of lists, and voters are required to select
one candidate among all the participating lists.
2. The number of votes for each list is divided by a quota representing the number of
votes required for a seat. The result of the division consists of an integer part and a
fractional remainder.
3. Each list is first allocated a number of seats (called automatic seats) equal to the
integer. When there are any seats unallocated, the lists with largest remainder will be
allocated one additional seat.
Here's an example:
Suppose that there are 6 seats and 900,000 votes in total. To get one seat, a quota of
150,000 votes (= 900000/6) is needed. If there are 8 lists with the following distribution of
votes, the results of the election are shown in the last two rows.

List 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Votes 80,000 120,000 400,000 60,000 6,000 180,000 34,000 20,000

Automatic
0 0 2 0 0 1 0 0
Seats

Remainder 80,000 120,000 100,000 60,000 6,000 30,000 34,000 20,000

You are only required to determine two things:

1. Number of seats automatically obtained by each list.
2. The remainder after deducting the votes required for the automatic seats.
Please note that you do not need to determine the additional seats obtained by the
lists.

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 The following is a sample run. (Bolded text is the user input; italic text is the
output of your program.)

Total number of seats: 6

Total number of votes: 900000
Total number of lists: 8 Input by user.
Votes for list 1: 80000
Automatic seat for list 1: 0
Remainder for list 1: 80000
Votes for list 2: 120000 Result output by your program.
Automatic seat for list 2: 0
Remainder for list 2: 120000
Votes for list 3: 400000
Automatic seat for list 3: 2
Remainder for list 3: 100000
Votes for list 4: 60000
Automatic seat for list 4: 0
Remainder for list 4: 60000
Votes for list 5: 6000
Automatic seat for list 5: 0
Remainder for list 5: 6000
Votes for list 6: 180000
Automatic seat for list 6: 1
Remainder for list 6: 30000
Votes for list 7: 34000
Automatic seat for list 7: 0
Remainder for list 7: 34000
Votes for list 8: 20000
Automatic seat for list 8: 0
Remainder for list 8: 20000 The last output ends with “\n”

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• Of course you are not required to solve this problem again from scratch ☺ Please look at
the C++ solution to this problem.
$ vi assign1.cpp
$ g++ -pedantic-errors -std=c11 assign1.cpp –o assign1_cpp
$ ./assign1_cpp
(You can test the code, it is error free)
• Your task is to create a C implementation of the assign1.cpp.
$ cp assign1.cpp assign1.c
$ vi assign1.c
• Compile and run assign1.c
$ gcc -pedantic-errors -std=c11 assign1.c –o assign1
$ ./assign1
(Test the code against the test case in the previous page)

References
• Application programming in ANSI c (3rd edition), by Richard Johnsonbaugh & Martin
Kalin. Prentice Hall.
• Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis in C(2nd edition), by Mark Allen Weiss. Addison
Wesley.
• Similer to C++, scanf() will stop reading once a space or newline is encountered.
• To read in a line of string incluing space into a variable, we need to use the
getline()or fgets() function. Please refer to the following references if you want
to learn more about those functions.
• Tutorial on getline()
http://crasseux.com/books/ctutorial/getline.html
• Cprogramming.com
http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html
http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial/c/lesson9.html

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