CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cstringprintfoutputascii
Kshyamano
Kshyamano

Reputation: 27

C output question.Can anyone explain this output?

#include<stdio.h>
void main()
{
    printf("%d",'AA');
}

I was expecting an error there but the program ran and output was 16705. Can anyone please explain this?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 135

Answers (3)

KamilCuk
KamilCuk

Reputation: 141523

Can anyone please explain this?

The 'AA' is a multi-character character constant. It has the type int. It's value is implementation-defined.

"Implementation" here is the compiler and your compiler has rules to which int value 'AA' is mapped to. The mapping seems to be easy. Because I don't know your compiler, I am guessing it. Consult your compiler documentation to be sure.

'AA' maps to a value 'A' << 8 | 'A'. Bit shifted 'A' by a byte with another 'A'. You system most probably uses ASCII to represent characters. The 'A' maps in ASCII to a value 65 in decimal (0x41 in hex). Calculating 0x41 << 8 | 0x41 gives the value of 16705 in decimal. Because this is an int value, you can use %d to print the result. So your code is equivalent to printf("%d\n", 16705).

Upvotes: 4

NetworkShark
NetworkShark

Reputation: 1

this code run because the char data type is a number and you have request ho print the real number of 'AA'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_data_types

Upvotes: -1

MSalters
MSalters

Reputation: 179991

'AA' is an exotic beast. It's a character literal, but ASCII does not have a single character 'AA'. This explains why you get a non-ASCII value instead.

Upvotes: 0

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