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This article will introduce various methods on how to print character array in C language.

forHow to use loop to print character array in C language

If we want to print array elements individually and format the output with more details, fora loop is the most obvious solution. The key premise of this method is that we should know the length of the array in advance.

It should be noted that we can use other iteration methods, such as whileloops, but we should know the value at which point the iteration should stop, otherwise, the iteration will go out of bounds and throw an error.

In the following example, we demonstrate forthe loop method and iterate over an array of six characters exactly six times.

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

#define STR(num) #num

int main(void) {
    char arr1[] = { 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f' };

    printf(STR(arr1)": ");
    for (int i = 0; i < 6; ++i) {
        printf("%c, ", arr1[i]);
    }
    printf("\b\b\n");

    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

Output:

arr1: a, b, c, d, e, f

Printing character arrays in C using the printfand specifiers%s

printfThe function is a powerful formatted output function. It can operate the type specifier on the input variable and process the variable accordingly.

That is, the internal structure of a character array is the same as a C-style string, except that the characters of a C-style string always \0end with a byte, indicating the end point. If we add a byte to the end of the character array null, we can printfprint the entire array with a single call.

If the ending nullbyte is not specified and this method is called printf, the program may try to access the memory area, which will most likely cause a segmentation fault.

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

#define STR(num) #num

int main(void) {
    char arr1[] = { 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f' };
    char arr2[] = { 't', 'r', 'n', 'm', 'b', 'v', '\0' };

    printf("%s\n", arr1);
    printf("%s\n", arr2);

    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

Output:

abcdeftrnmbv
trnmbv

As you can see, when we print without nullthe terminating character arr1, we get more characters until we iterate to a nullterminating character - \0.

Another printfway to specialize the function is %sto pass the number of characters in the string in the specifier. One way is to hard-code the length of the string with an integer between the sign %and , or you can replace the sign with another integer argument from the parameter. Note that both methods put the character before the number or asterisk .s*printf.

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

#define STR(num) #num

int main(void) {
    char arr1[] = { 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f' };
    char arr2[] = { 't', 'r', 'n', 'm', 'b', 'v', '\0' };

    printf("%.6s\n", arr1);
    printf("%.*s\n", (int)sizeof arr1, arr2);

    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

Output:

abcdef
trnmbv