Week 12

C Formatted Input/Output
C How to Program, 7/e

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 OBJECTIVES
• Use input and output streams.
• Use print formatting capabilities.
• Use input formatting capabilities.
• Print integers, floating-point numbers, strings and characters.
• Print with field widths and precisions.
• Use formatting flags in the printf format control string.
• Output literals and escape sequences.
• Read formatted input using scanf.
 9.1 Introduction
• An important part of the solution to any
problem is the presentation of the results.
• In this chapter, we discuss in depth the
formatting features of scanf and printf.
• These functions input data from the standard
input stream and output data to the standard
output stream.
• Include the header <stdio.h> in programs
that call these functions.

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 9.3 Formatting Output with printf

• Precise output formatting is accomplished with

printf.
• Every printf call contains a format control
string that describes the output format.
• The format control string consists of conversion
specifiers, flags, field widths, precisions and
literal characters.
• Together with the percent sign (%), these form
conversion specifications.
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 9.4 Printing Integers

• An integer is a whole number, such as 776, 0

or –52, that contains no decimal point.
• Integer values are displayed in one of several
formats.
• Figure 9.1 describes the integer conversion
specifiers.

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 Number

System Base Digits

Binary 2 01

Octal 8 01234567

Decimal 10 0123456789

Hexadecimal 16 0123456789ABCDEF
 9.4 Printing Integers (Cont.)

• Figure 9.2 prints an integer using each of the

integer conversion specifiers.
• Only the minus sign prints; plus signs are
normally suppressed.
• Also, the value -455, when read by %u (line
15), is interpreted as an unsigned value
4294966841.

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 9.8 Printing with Field Widths and Precision

• The exact size of a field in which data is printed is specified

by a field width.
• If the field width is larger than the data being printed, the
data will normally be right justified within that field.
• An integer representing the field width is inserted between
the percent sign (%) and the conversion specifier (e.g., %4d).
• Figure 9.8 prints two groups of five numbers each, right
justifying those containing fewer digits than the field width.
• The field width is increased to print values wider than the
field.
• Note that the minus sign for a negative value uses one
character position in the field width.
• Field widths can be used with all conversion specifiers.

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9.9 Using Flags in the printf Format Control String

• Function printf also provides flags to

supplement its output formatting capabilities.
• Five flags are available for use in format control
strings (Fig. 9.10).
• To use a flag in a format control string, place
the flag immediately to the right of the percent
sign.
• Several flags may be combined in one
conversion specifier.
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9.9 Using Flags in the printf Format Control String
(Cont.)

• Figure 9.11 demonstrates right justification

and left justification of a string, an integer, a
character and a floating-point number.

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9.9 Using Flags in the printf Format Control String
(Cont.)

• Figure 9.12 prints a positive number and a

negative number, each with and without the +
flag.
• The minus sign is displayed in both cases, but
the plus sign is displayed only when the + flag
is used.

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9.9 Using Flags in the printf Format Control String
(Cont.)

• Figure 9.13 prefixes a space to the positive

number with the space flag.
• This is useful for aligning positive and
negative numbers with the same number of
digits.
• The value -547 is not preceded by a space in
the output because of its minus sign.

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9.9 Using Flags in the printf Format Control String
(Cont.)

• Figure 9.14 uses the # flag to prefix 0 to the

octal value and 0x and 0X to the hexadecimal
values, and to force the decimal point on a
value printed with g.

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9.9 Using Flags in the printf Format Control String
(Cont.)

• Figure 9.15 combines the + flag and the 0

(zero) flag to print 452 in a 9-space field with
a + sign and leading zeros, then prints 452
again using only the 0 flag and a 9-space field.

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 9.10 Printing Literals and Escape Sequences

• Most literal characters to be printed in a printf statement

can simply be included in the format control string.
• However, there are several “problem” characters, such as
the quotation mark (") that delimits the format control
string itself.
• Various control characters, such as newline and tab, must be
represented by escape sequences.
• An escape sequence is represented by a backslash (\),
followed by a particular escape character.
• Figure 9.16 lists the escape sequences and the actions they
cause.
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 9.11 Reading Formatted Input with scanf

• Precise input formatting can be accomplished with

scanf.
• Every scanf statement contains a format control
string that describes the format of the data to be input.
• The format control string consists of conversion
specifiers and literal characters.
• Function scanf has the following input formatting
capabilities:
– Inputting all types of data.
– Inputting specific characters from an input stream.
– Skipping specific characters in the input stream.
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 9.11 Reading Formatted Input with scanf (Cont.)

• Figure 9.17 summarizes the conversion

specifiers used to input all types of data.
• The remainder of this section provides
programs that demonstrate reading data with
the various scanf conversion specifiers.
• Note that the d and i conversion specifiers
have different meanings for input with
scanf, whereas they’re interchangeable for
output with printf.
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 9.11 Reading Formatted Input with scanf (Cont.)

• Figure 9.18 reads integers with the various

integer conversion specifiers and displays the
integers as decimal numbers.
• Conversion specifier %i can input decimal,
octal and hexadecimal integers.

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 9.11 Reading Formatted Input with scanf (Cont.)

• When inputting floating-point numbers, any of the

floating-point conversion specifiers e, E, f, g or G
can be used.
• Figure 9.19 reads three floating-point numbers, one
with each of the three types of floating conversion
specifiers, and displays all three numbers with
conversion specifier f.
• The program output confirms the fact that floating-
point values are imprecise—this is highlighted by
the third value printed.
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 9.11 Reading Formatted Input with scanf (Cont.)

• Characters and strings are input using the

conversion specifiers c and s, respectively.
• Figure 9.20 prompts the user to enter a string.
• The program inputs the first character of the
string with %c and stores it in the character
variable x, then inputs the remainder of the
string with %s and stores it in character array
y.

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 9.11 Reading Formatted Input with scanf (Cont.)

• A sequence of characters can be input using a scan set.

• A scan set is a set of characters enclosed in square brackets,
[], and preceded by a percent sign in the format control
string.
• A scan set scans the characters in the input stream, looking
only for those characters that match characters contained in
the scan set.
• Each time a character is matched, it’s stored in the scan set’s
corresponding argument—a pointer to a character array.
• The scan set stops inputting characters when a character
that’s not contained in the scan set is encountered.

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 9.11 Reading Formatted Input with scanf (Cont.)

• If the first character in the input stream does

not match a character in the scan set, the array
is not modified.
• Figure 9.21 uses the scan set [aeiou] to
scan the input stream for vowels.

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• Notice that the first seven letters of the input are read.
• The eighth letter (h) is not in the scan set and therefore the scanning is
terminated.

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 9.11 Reading Formatted Input with scanf (Cont.)

• The scan set can also be used to scan for characters not
contained in the scan set by using an inverted scan set.
• To create an inverted scan set, place a caret (^) in the
square brackets before the scan characters.
• This causes characters not appearing in the scan set to
be stored.
• When a character contained in the inverted scan set is
encountered, input terminates.
• Figure 9.22 uses the inverted scan set [^aeiou] to
search for consonants—more properly to search for
“nonvowels.”
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 9.11 Reading Formatted Input with scanf (Cont.)

• A field width can be used in a scanf

conversion specifier to read a specific number
of characters from the input stream.
• Figure 9.23 inputs a series of consecutive
digits as a two-digit integer and an integer
consisting of the remaining digits in the input
stream.

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 9.11 Reading Formatted Input with scanf (Cont.)

• Often it’s necessary to skip certain characters in the

input stream.
• For example, a date could be entered as
• 11-10-1999
• Each number in the date needs to be stored, but the
dashes that separate the numbers can be discarded.
• To eliminate unnecessary characters, include them
in the format control string of scanf (whitespace
characters—such as space, newline and tab—skip
all leading whitespace).
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 9.11 Reading Formatted Input with scanf (Cont.)

• For example, to skip the dashes in the input, use the

statement
• scanf("%d-%d-%d", &month, &day, &year);
• Although this scanf does eliminate the dashes in
the preceding input, it’s possible that the date could
be entered as
• 10/11/1999
• In this case, the preceding scanf would not
eliminate the unnecessary characters.
• For this reason, scanf provides the assignment
suppression character *.
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 9.11 Reading Formatted Input with scanf (Cont.)

• This character enables scanf to read any type of data from

the input and discard it without assigning it to a variable.
• Figure 9.24 uses the assignment suppression character in the
%c conversion specifier to indicate that a character
appearing in the input stream should be read and discarded.
• Only the month, day and year are stored.
• The values of the variables are printed to demonstrate that
they’re in fact input correctly.
• The argument lists for each scanf call do not contain
variables for the conversion specifiers that use the
assignment suppression character.
• The corresponding characters are simply discarded.

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