Input and Output

Bishon Lamichhane
Topics
4.1 Introduction to data I/O in C
4.2 Unformatted I/O
4.2.1 Character I/O
4.2.2 String I/O
4.3 Formatted I/O
4.3.1 Control String(flags, field width, precision and specifier)
4.3.2 Formatted I/O(scanf(), printf())

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Input/Output Operation

Ø Input means to provide the program with some data to be used in the
program and output means to display data on screen or write the data to
a printer or a file.
Ø C programming language provides many built-in functions to read
any given input and to display data on screen when there is a need to
output the result.
Ø All these built-in functions are present in C header files.

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Fig.: Standard input/output
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Types of Input/Output
Ø There are two types of input/output statements:
1. Formatted input/output
2. Unformatted input/output
Formatted Input/Output
Ø It allows us to specify the different formats for input and output.
Ø User can decide the format for reading different values and displaying
them in different formats.
Ø All types of data can be handled by formatted input/output.
Ø scanf( ) and printf( ) are the formatted input and output statements
respectively.

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printf( ) – formatted output function used to display messages and
values on a screen
Syntax:
printf(“control string”,arg1,arg2,……);
Øwhere, arg1,arg2,...are the variables/expression whose values are to be
displayed and control string may contain only the message to be
displayed or the format specifier for different data types or
combination of both.
ØIt can also contain different escape sequences(\n,\t, etc).

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Ø General form of control string can be written as:
Ø %<flag>w.pX
Ø where, flag is a character or symbol(-,0,+-, etc) that is used to change
the appearance of output.
Ø w is the width specifier and p is the precision specifier(used only for
float and string data).
Ø X is the conversion character which is different for various data
types:

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Data type Conversion character(X) Format Specifier
char c %c
int d or i %d or %i
float f %f
double lf %lf
long int ld %ld
unsigned int u %u
string s %s

Note: Only the symbol % and the conversion character is

compulsory whereas flags, width and precision are optional and
can be used for displaying according to different formats
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scanf( ) – formatted input function used to read values from keyboard
i.e to give input.
Syntax: scanf(“control string”,&arg1, &arg2,……);
Ø where, control string specifies the type and format of the data that has
to be obtained from keyboard and stored in the memory locations
&arg1, &arg2,…..
Ø General form of control string can be written as:
Ø %w<conversion character>, here w is optional.

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Illustrations:
a. Formatted I/O for integer data
i. Formatted output
Ø general form: %<flags> wd
Ø where w is field width and flags represent some characters (–, 0, +–,
etc.) that are used to change the appearance of output.

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#include<stdio.h>
void main ( )
{
int a = 12345;
printf ("\ncase 1: %d", a); // w not specified
printf ("\ncase 2: %15d", a);
printf ("\ncase 3: %-15d", a);
printf ("\ncase 4: % 015d", a);
printf ("\ncase 5: % 3d", a);//w less than width of data to print
}
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Output:
case 1: 12345
case 2: . . . . . . . . . .12345
case 3: 12345. . . . . . . . . .
case 4: 000000000012345
case 5: 12345

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Formatted input
Ø general form: %wd
Ø where w is field width
e.g.,
#include<stdio.h>
void main ()
{
int a, b;
scanf ("% 3d % 4d", & a, &b);
printf ("\n a = % d \n b = %d", a, b);
}
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Output 1:
12 1234
a = 12
b = 1234
Output 2:
12345 6789
a = 123
b = 45

Note: If w is not specified then it can read the integers of any width
within the range of int data type.
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Formatted character I/O
Ø For printing character we use printf function and general form of
format specifier is : % wc
Ø where, w is field width of w column with right justification
#include<stdio.h>
void main ( )
{
char ch = 'C';
printf ("\n case 1: % c", ch) ;
printf ('\n case 2 : % 5c", ch) ;
printf ("\n case 3: % -5c", ch) ;
}
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Output:
case 1 : C
case 2 : . . . . C
case 3 : C . . . .
ØFor inputing a character we use scanf function as,
Øscanf (" %c", &ch) ; //note the space before %c
ØSpace before %c is used to ignore the white space characters(tab,
space, enter) before entering a character.

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Formatted I/O string data
Ø The formatted output string data has the specification as below:
Ø % w.ps
Ø Where w specifies the field for display and p instructs that only first p
characters of the string are to be displayed.
Ø The display is right-justified unless - flag is used.

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#include<stdio.h>
void main ()
{
char a[ ]="kathmandu";
printf ("\ncase 1: %s", a);
printf ("\ncase 2: %15.4s", a);
printf ("\ncase 3: % -15.6s", a);
printf ("\ncase 4: %5.4s",a);
printf ("\ncase 5: %15s",a);
}

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Output:
case 1: kathmandu
case 2: . . . . . . . . . . . kath
case 3: kathma . . . . . . . . .
case 4: . kath
case 5: . . . . . . kathmandu

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Ø The formatted input string data has the specifications as below:
Ø % ws
Ø where w denotes maximum number of characters that can be input.
But reading is terminated after any white space is encountered.
Ø If w is not specified , it reads all the characters until a white space is
encountered. But the number of characters must be less than size of
string.

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#include<stdio.h>
void main()
{
char a[ 20];
printf("Enter any string:");
scanf("%s",a); //Here, a itself denotes the address of string
printf("The string you entered = %s",a);
}

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Output1:
Enter any string: ramesh
The string you entered = ramesh
Output2:
Enter any string: ramesh thapa
The string you entered = ramesh
[Here, reading is terminated after space is encountered]

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#include<stdio.h>
void main()
{
char a[20];
printf("Enter any string:");
scanf("%5s",a);
printf("The string you entered = %s",a);
}

Output:
Enter any string: ramesh
The string you entered = rames
[Here, only first 5 characters are read]
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Ø Another way to read strings using scanf function is to use the formats
%[characters] and %[^characters].
Ø They are known as defining search set to read strings. String with
white spaces can be read using this formats. %[characters] means
that only the characters defined inside the bracket can be read and
reading is terminated after encounter of any other characters.
%[^characters] means that reading is continued until the characters
defined after ^ is encounterd or reading is terminated after any of
those characters are encountered.

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#include<stdio.h>
void main()
{
char a[20];
printf("Enter any string:");
scanf("%[a-z 0-9]",a);
printf("The string you entered is = %s",a);
}

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Output1:
Enter any string:ramesh thapa123
The string you entered is = ramesh thapa123
[Here, all the lower case letters, space and digits are read]
Output2:
Enter any string:ramesh Thapa123
The string you entered is = Ramesh
[Here, reading is terminated after T is encountered as it is not defined in
the search set]

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Example2:
#include<stdio.h>
void main()
{
char a[20];
printf("Enter any string:");
scanf("%[^b]",a);
printf("The string you entered is = %s",a);
}
Output:
Enter any string:Volleyball
The string you entered is = Volley
[Here, reading is terminated after
Compiled byb is encountered]
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Formatted I/O for float data
i. Formatted output
Ø general form: %<flags> w.pf
Ø where w is field width, flags represent some characters (–, 0, +–, etc.)
that are used to change the appearance of output, and p represents
precision specifier.

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#include<stdio.h>
void main ( )
{
float a = 12.3456;
printf ("\ncase 1: %f", a); // w not specified
printf ("\ncase 2: %15.2f", a);
printf ("\ncase 3: %-15.1f", a);
printf ("\ncase 4: % 015.3f", a);
printf ("\ncase 5: %0.2f", a);
}

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Output:
case 1: 12.345600
case 2: . . . . . . . . . .12.35
case 3: 12.3. . . . . . . . . . .
case 4: 00000000012.346
case 5: 12.35

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Unformatted Input/Output
a. Character I/O
i. Input functions
getchar ( ) - reads a single character from user
Syntax: character_variable = getchar ( );

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void main ( )
{
char ch;
printf ("\nEnter a character");
ch = getchar ( );
printf ("\nEntered character is : %c", ch);
}

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Ø For reading characters we can also use getch ( ) and getche ( ).
Syntax:character_variable = getche ( ) ;
character_variable = getch ( ) ;
e.g.,ch = getchar ( ) ;
ch = getche ( ) ;

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Ø getche( ) – reads a character from console and echoes to the screen. It
allows a character to be entered without having to press the Enter key
afterwards.
Syntax: ch=getche( ); where, ch is any character type variable.

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e.g., void main( )
{
char ch;
printf(“enter any character:”);
ch=getche( );
printf(“entered character is %c”,ch);
}
Output:
enter any character:N
entered character is N

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Ø getch( ) - reads a character from console but does not echo to the
screen. It also allows a character to be entered without having to press
the Enter key afterwards.
Ø Syntax: ch=getch( ); where, ch is any character type variable.

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e.g., void main( )
{
char ch;
printf(“enter any character:”);
ch=getch( );
printf(“entered character is %c”,ch);
}
Output:
enter any character:
entered character is N
//Here, the entered character N is not echoed to the screen.

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Difference between getch ( ), getchar ( ), and getche ( ):
Øgetchar ( ) – wait for a character followed by the Enter key
Øgetch ( ) – waits for a character and does not echo to screen
Øgetche ( ) – waits for a character and echoes to screen.

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Output functions
putchar( )
Ø It is an unformatted output statement for printing a character.
Syntax: putchar(ch);
where 'ch' is any character variable.
Ø For printing a character we can also use putch ( ) .
Syntax: putch (character_variable)

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void main ( )
{
char ch;
printf ("\nEnter a character");
ch = getchar ( );
printf ("\nEntered character is :");
putchar(ch);
}

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String I/O
i. Input function
Ø gets( ) – It is an unformatted input function for reading strings.
Syntax: gets(str);
Ø where 'str' is any string variable.

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Output function
Ø puts ( ) - It displays the string stored in string variable
Ø Syntax: puts (string_variable);
e.g.,
void main ( )
{
char str [20];
printf ("\n Enter a string");
gets (str);
printf ("\n Entered string is:");
puts (str);
} Compiled by Bishon 42
Chapter 4 Ends Here

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