format specifiers in C | %d, %f, %c, %s | Integer, Float,Character, String

Format specifiers define the type of data. The value of a variable is stored in memory. So we can not directly print values of a variable from memory. Therefore C provides format specifier for printing values of variables that are stored in memory. C provide different types of format specifier for data types. Every format specifier starts with % percent sign.

Following is the list of format specifiers that can be used with the printf( ) function.

List of format specifiers in C

Data type		Format Specifier
Integer	short signed	%d or %I
	short unsigned	%u
	long signed	%ld
	long unsigned	%lu
	unsigned hexadecimal	%x
	unsigned octal	%o
Real	float	%f
Real	double	%lf
Character	signed character	%c
Character	unsigned character	%c
String		%s

Let’s see an example to demonstrate the use of format specifier:
Example:

int main()
{
	int a = 10;
	float b = 3.14;
	char ch = 'a';
	
	printf("%d\n", a);     //Integer format specifier
	printf("%f\n", b);     //Float format specifier
	printf("%c", ch);      //Character format specifier
}

int main()

{

int a = 10;

float b = 3.14;

char ch = 'a';

printf("%d\n", a); //Integer format specifier

printf("%f\n", b); //Float format specifier

printf("%c", ch); //Character format specifier

}

Output:

10
3.140000
a

3.140000

The %f for printing real values, %d for printing integer values, %c for printing character values.
The format specifier does not print on the screen, it displays the value stored in variables.
In this way, you can also print a string using %s format specifier.

You can use this format specifier between expressions.
Also, these can use with scanf(). You will understand the purpose of each format specifier in the program in our next post.

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C Format Specifier

List of format specifiers in C

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