CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cnewlinestdio
Insane
Insane

Reputation: 889

Is puts or putchar better for printing just a newline?

Which is better (in both performance and best practice) for printing only a newline:

putchar('\n') or puts("")

From what I understand, putchar outputs a single character and puts outputs a string of characters. Forget about printf.

I'm inclined to use puts because it's shorter, but doing ("") just feels wrong.

Which is faster and better?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 933

Answers (4)

chux
chux

Reputation: 153348

A good compiler will emit the same optimized code for the below, so it is not a performance issue.

putchar('\n');
puts("");

Use the one that better conveys code's intent. This often depends on what else is being printed.

// Example 1
putchar('(');
putchar(ch);
putchar(')');

putchar('\n');  // Better choice
// puts("");


// Example 2
puts(name);
puts(rank);
puts(serial_number);

// putchar('\n');  
puts(""); // Better choice

Upvotes: 2

Jason
Jason

Reputation: 3917

Theoretically, one requires a pointer, and an extra byte and the other doesn't. As well, one could require more instructions and potentially blow some i-cache, which could be bad. In practice the difference between the two is almost certainly negligible though.

However, I'd still personally use putc or putchar just because the code is easier for anyone else to read and understand.

Upvotes: 5

user4982357
user4982357

Reputation: 3

Even though puts() allows you to output a string, you are outputting a string that has only a single character (the newline), so the result, and the performance, should be the same as using putchar().

Upvotes: 0

hobbs
hobbs

Reputation: 239831

Any speed difference between them is going to be insignificant, but putchar is probably faster because it takes a single char argument.

Far more importantly, putchar('\n') is saying what you mean, while puts("") isn't.

Upvotes: 10

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