CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cprintf
Safi Ullah Ibne Sultan
Safi Ullah Ibne Sultan

Reputation: 622

why one single \ in a printf function does not shown in output console screen but double \\ does it?

Why one single \ in a printf function does not show in the output console screen but double \\ does?

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main()
{
  //why is double \\ necessary?
  printf("\\");

  printf("\");
  //why here shown error in the second printf?

   printf("  " "dd " "  ");
  //why its executed successfully
  printf(" " "" ");
  //why it is shown errow
  return 0;
}

Upvotes: 3

Views: 462

Answers (4)

Faojul Ahsan
Faojul Ahsan

Reputation: 94

backslash is used for Escape sequences.

An escape sequence is a sequence of characters that does not represent itself when used inside a character or string literal, but is translated into another character or a sequence of characters that may be difficult or impossible to represent directly. (From wikipedia)

In C , look :

\n for new line , \t for tab are used. here back slash is used as an escape sequence which doesnot represent itself

printf("\\");

here , first backslash is used as escape sequence. so second \ backslash will be printed. but

printf("\");

but for this case , only escape sequence . so it will show a error

Upvotes: 2

Ayushi Jha
Ayushi Jha

Reputation: 4023

The \ in the printf() statement is used for escaping characters. For example, \n means newline, \0 means null character. etc. Therefore, when you use simply a \, it expects some character which is to be escaped. In the second printf(), the character to be escaped becomes ", rendering your printf() statement incomplete. So it shows an error, whereas in the first code, there is a \ after the first \, so it is treated as a character to be displayed rather than an escape character.

From Wikipedia

An escape sequence is a sequence of characters that does not represent itself when used inside a character or string literal, but is translated into another character or a sequence of characters that may be difficult or impossible to represent directly.

Upvotes: 4

Yatin Kaushik
Yatin Kaushik

Reputation: 21

because back slash i.e. \ is used for escape sequences. These escape sequences are used for performing special tasks like formatting, playing a beep (\a) and since it is treated as a special character the compiler thinks that you want to perform some special task when you write "\" in printf which means you won't be able to print \ so in order to print \ you just type it twice "\"

Upvotes: 2

ouah
ouah

Reputation: 145839

\ is already used as the first character for escape sequences, for example \n is the new line and \t is the horizontal tab. To print a \ character you need the \\ escape sequence.

Upvotes: 3

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