Comments in C

Comments in C language are used to provide information about lines of code. It is

widely used for documenting code. There are 2 types of comments in the C language.

1. Single Line Comments

Format Description
specifier

%d or %i It is used to print the signed integer value where signed integer means that the
variable can hold both positive and negative values.

%u It is used to print the unsigned integer value where the unsigned integer means
that the variable can hold only positive value.

%o It is used to print the octal unsigned integer where octal integer value always
starts with a 0 value.

%x It is used to print the hexadecimal unsigned integer where the hexadecimal

integer value always starts with a 0x value. In this, alphabetical characters are
printed in small letters such as a, b, c, etc.

%X It is used to print the hexadecimal unsigned integer, but %X prints the

alphabetical characters in uppercase such as A, B, C, etc.

%f It is used for printing the decimal floating-point values. By default, it prints the 6
values after '.'.

%e/%E It is used for scientific notation. It is also known as Mantissa or Exponent.

%g It is used to print the decimal floating-point values, and it uses the fixed
precision, i.e., the value after the decimal in input would be exactly the same as
the value in the output.
%p It is used to print the address in a hexadecimal form.

%c It is used to print the unsigned character.

%s It is used to print the strings.

%ld It is used to print the long-signed integer value.

2. Multi-Line Comments

Single Line Comments

Single line comments are represented by double slash \\. Let's see an example of a
single line comment in C.

1. #include<stdio.h>
2. int main(){
3. //printing information
4. printf("Hello C");
5. return 0;
6. }

C Format Specifier
The Format specifier is a string used in the formatted input and output functions. The
format string determines the format of the input and output. The format string always
starts with a '%' character.

The commonly used format specifiers in printf() function are:

Let's understand the format specifiers in detail through an example.

o %d

1. int main()
2. {
3. int b=6;
4. int c=8;
5. printf("Value of b is:%d", b);
6. printf("\nValue of c is:%d",c);
7.
8. return 0;
9. }

In the above code, we are printing the integer value of b and c by using the %d
specifier.

Output

o %u

1. int main()
2. {
3. int b=10;
4. int c= -10;
5. printf("Value of b is:%u", b);
6. printf("\nValue of c is:%u",c);
7.
8. return 0;
9. }
 In the above program, we are displaying the value of b and c by using an unsigned
format specifier, i.e., %u. The value of b is positive, so %u specifier prints the exact
value of b, but it does not print the value of c as c contains the negative value.

Output

o %o

int main()
{
int a=0100;
printf("Octal value of a is: %o", a);
printf("\nInteger value of a is: %d",a);
return 0;
}

In the above code, we are displaying the octal value and integer value of a.

Output
 o %x and %X

1. int main()
2. {
3. int y=0xA;
4. printf("Hexadecimal value of y is: %x", y);
5. printf("\nHexadecimal value of y is: %X",y);
6. printf("\nInteger value of y is: %d",y);
7. return 0;
8. }

In the above code, y contains the hexadecimal value 'A'. We display the hexadecimal
value of y in two formats. We use %x and %X to print the hexadecimal value where %x
displays the value in small letters, i.e., 'a' and %X displays the value in a capital letter,
i.e., 'A'.

Output
 o %f

1. int main()
2. {
3. float y=3.4;
4. printf("Floating point value of y is: %f", y);
5. return 0;
6. }

The above code prints the floating value of y.

Output

o %e

1. int main()
2. {
3. float y=3;
4. printf("Exponential value of y is: %e", y);
5. return 0;
6. }

Output
 o %E

1. int main()
2. {
3. float y=3;
4. printf("Exponential value of y is: %E", y);
5. return 0;
6. }

Output

o %g

1. int main()
2. {
3. float y=3.8;
4. printf("Float value of y is: %g", y);
5. return 0;
6. }

In the above code, we are displaying the floating value of y by using %g specifier. The
%g specifier displays the output same as the input with a same precision.

Output

o %p

1. int main()
2. {
3. int y=5;
4. printf("Address value of y in hexadecimal form is: %p", &y);
5. return 0;
6. }

Output
 o %c

1. int main()
2. {
3. char a='c';
4. printf("Value of a is: %c", a);
5. return 0;
6. }

Output

o %s

1. int main()
2. {
3. printf("%s", "javaTpoint");
4. return 0;
5. }

Output
 Minimum Field Width Specifier
Suppose we want to display an output that occupies a minimum number of spaces on
the screen. You can achieve this by displaying an integer number after the percent sign
of the format specifier.

1. int main()
2. {
3. int x=900;
4. printf("%8d", x);
5. printf("\n%-8d",x);
6. return 0;
7. }

In the above program, %8d specifier displays the value after 8 spaces while %-8d
specifier will make a value left-aligned.

Output
 Now we will see how to fill the empty spaces. It is shown in the below code:

1. int main()
2. {
3. int x=12;
4. printf("%08d", x);
5. return 0;
6. }

In the above program, %08d means that the empty space is filled with zeroes.

Output

Specifying Precision
 We can specify the precision by using '.' (Dot) operator which is followed by integer and
format specifier.

1. int main()
2. {
3. float x=12.2;
4. printf("%.2f", x);
5. return 0;
6. }

Output

Escape Sequence in C
An escape sequence in C language is a sequence of characters that doesn't represent
itself when used inside string literal or character.

It is composed of two or more characters starting with backslash \. For example: \n

represents new line.

List of Escape Sequences in C

Escape Sequence Meaning

 \a Alarm or Beep

\b Backspace

\f Form Feed

\n New Line

\r Carriage Return

\t Tab (Horizontal)

\v Vertical Tab

\\ Backslash

\' Single Quote

\" Double Quote

\? Question Mark

\nnn octal number

\xhh hexadecimal number

\0 Null

Escape Sequence Example

1. #include<stdio.h>
2. int main(){
3. int number=50;
4. printf("You\nare\nlearning\n\'c\' language\n\"Do you know C language\"");
5. return 0;
6. }

Output:
 You
are
learning
'c' language
"Do you know C langua

ASCII value in C
What is ASCII code?
The full form of ASCII is the American Standard Code for information
interchange. It is a character encoding scheme used for electronics communication.
Each character or a special character is represented by some ASCII code, and each ascii
code occupies 7 bits in memory.

In C programming language, a character variable does not contain a character value

itself rather the ascii value of the character variable. The a

scii value represents the character variable in numbers, and each character variable is
assigned with some number range from 0 to 127. For example, the ascii value of 'A' is
65.

In the above example, we assign 'A' to the character variable whose ascii value is 65,
so 65 will be stored in the character variable rather than 'A'.

Let's understand through an example.

We will create a program which will display the ascii value of the character
variable.

1. #include <stdio.h>
2. int main()
3. {
4. char ch; // variable declaration
5. printf("Enter a character");
6. scanf("%c",&ch); // user input
7. printf("\n The ascii value of the ch variable is : %d", ch);
8. return 0;
9. }

In the above code, the first user will give the character input, and the input will get
stored in the 'ch' variable. If we print the value of the 'ch' variable by using %c format
specifier, then it will display 'A' because we have given the character input as 'A', and if
we use the %d format specifier then its ascii value will be displayed, i.e., 65.

Output

The above output shows that the user gave the input as 'A', and after giving input, the
ascii value of 'A' will get printed, i.e., 65.

Now, we will create a program which will display the ascii value of all the characters.

1. #include <stdio.h>
2. int main()
3. {
4. int k; // variable declaration
5. for(int k=0;k<=255;k++) // for loop from 0-255
6. {
7. printf("\nThe ascii value of %c is %d", k,k);
8. }
9. return 0;
10. }

The above program will display the ascii value of all the characters. As we know that
ascii value of all the characters starts from 0 and ends at 255, so we iterate the for loop
from 0 to 255.

Now we will create the program which will sum the ascii value of a string.
1. #include <stdio.h>
2. int main()
3. {
4. int sum=0; // variable initialization
5. char name[20]; // variable initialization
6. int i=0; // variable initialization
7. printf("Enter a name: ");
8. scanf("%s", name);
9. while(name[i]!='\0') // while loop
10. {
11. printf("\nThe ascii value of the character %c is %d", name[i],name[i]);
12. sum=sum+name[i];
13. i++;
14. }
15. printf("\nSum of the ascii value of a string is : %d", sum);
16. return 0;
17. }

In the above code, we are taking user input as a string. After taking user input, we
execute the while loop which adds the ascii value of all the characters of a string and
stores it in a 'sum' variable.

Output