COE 251

DATA INPUT AND

OUTPUT

Dr. Eliel Keelson

OUTLINE

COMMENTS

MY FIRST PROGRAM

DATA INPUT/OUTPUT

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INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES (ILOs)

To be able To To
to use and Understand Understand
identify how to how to Input
Comments Output Data Data via the
on a Display Keyboard

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1
COMMENTS

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COMMENTS

▪ A comment is a note to yourself (or others) that you put into

your source code.
▪ All comments are ignored by the compiler. They exist solely for
your benefit.
▪ Comments are used primarily to document the meaning and
purpose of your source code, so that you can remember later
how it functions and how to use it.

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COMMENTS

▪ Comments are however not mandatory. A developer may decide

not to include them in code.
▪ However, it is good programming practice to include
comments.
▪ In C, the start of a comment is signaled by the /* character pair.
A comment is ended by */
▪ For example, this is a syntactically correct C comment: /* This
is a comment. */
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COMMENTS

▪ Comments that span over multiple lines can be encapsulated

just as shown earlier.
▪ However, single line comments can be started with // such as
//This is a single line comment

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“ Commenting your code is like
cleaning your bathroom - you
never want to do it, but it really
does create a more pleasant
experience for you and your
guests. — Ryan Campbell

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2
FIRST PROGRAM
Understanding and Running Your First
Program in C
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MY FIRST PROGRAM – HELLO WORLD

▪ The Code on the next slide is an example of a simple program

to get you started in C.

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MY FIRST PROGRAM – HELLO WORLD

/*
Finally My Very
first C program
*/

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("Hello, World!\n"); // displays Hello, World! on the screen
return 0;
}
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MY FIRST PROGRAM – HELLO WORLD

▪ In the code above it is very obvious that some of the text in

there are just comments.
▪ Can you identify any multi-line and/or single line comments?

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#include <stdio.h>

▪ The program seen above displays to the screen the text “Hello
World!”
▪ To do this successfully the program needs to speak to the
computer’s hardware responsible for display.
▪ This requires an elaborate sequence of actions. However, this
heavy lifting has been done for us and bundled in a Header File
called stdio (Standard Input/Output) header file.

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#include <stdio.h>

▪ The .h simply connotes that this is a header file.

▪ This header file contains a library of functions responsible for
input and output operations, such as displaying to the computer
screen using the printf (print function).
▪ So to use any of these functions one must first include it into
the code using the #include preprocessor command.
▪ A lot more would be said on preprocessor commands later.
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The main() Function

▪ In C programming, the code execution begins from the start of

main() function (doesn’t matter if main() isn’t located at the
beginning of the code).
▪ The code inside the curly braces { } is the body of main()
function.
▪ The main() function is mandatory in every C program.

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The main() Function

▪ The data type int that comes before the main() function is
simply to cater for the returning of the integer 0 from the
statement return 0.
▪ A lot more would be shared on the returning value when
studying the topic FUNCTIONS.

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The printf() Function

▪ The printf() is a library function that sends formatted output to

the screen (displays the string inside the quotation marks).
▪ Notice the semicolon(;) at the end of the statement.
▪ In our program, it displays Hello, World! on the screen.
▪ Remember, you need to include stdio.h file in your program for
this to work.

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The return Statement

▪ The return statement return 0; inside the main() function ends

the program.
▪ This statement isn’t mandatory. However, it’s considered good
programming practice to use it.

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ESCAPE SEQUENCES

▪ You must have noticed a \n pair of characters inside the printf()

function. This pair of characters is an example of an Escape
Sequence.
▪ The combination of these characters provide a special effect.
For example the \n produces a newline (like the enter key) and
the \t produces a horizontal space (like the tab key)

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ESCAPE SEQUENCES

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RUNNING THE CODE

▪ The code presented above would be typed into a favourable

Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that has support for
C, for example CodeBlocks.
▪ After saving the code with a file name having an extension .c
the code would be built and ran/executed.
▪ After running the code the result would be displayed on the
screen.

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RUNNING THE CODE

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RUNNING THE CODE

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3
DATA INPUT AND
OUTPUT

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DATA INPUT/OUTPUT

▪ From the very first program, to some extent, it is understood by

what data output refers to; displaying data to the user.
▪ The reverse; getting data from the user, can also be described
as data input.
▪ With the help of functions in the stdio.h file, these operations
are made possible.

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DATA INPUT/OUTPUT

▪ There are six main functions in the stdio.h that would be of

immense use in this course.
▪ They are: printf(), scanf(), putchar(), getchar(), puts() and
gets()
▪ The general syntax and mode of usage of each of these would
be explained in the following slides.

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PRINTF

▪ The printf() function, as seen already, writes output data from

the computer to a standard output device.
▪ This function can be used to output any combination of
numerical values, single characters and strings.
▪ Strings are simply a concatenation of characters.

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PRINTF

▪ The general syntax for using printf is :

printf(“control string”, arg1, arg2,…, argn);

▪ where control string refers to a string containing certain

formatting information, and arg_1, arg_2,…, arg_n are
arguments that represent the individual output data items.

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PRINTF

▪ Control strings are also known as string

modifiers/formatters/specifiers.
▪ While using printf(), these string formatters have the ability to
specify how values from variables are displayed.
▪ The next slide presents some of these control strings.

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CONTROL STRINGS

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PRINTF

▪ However, printf() statements do not always contain control

strings.
▪ For example, what was written in the first program.
printf(“Hello, World!\n”);
printf(“I am 50 years old”);

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PRINTF

▪ The above examples would print exactly what has been

capsuled in the quotation marks (together with the effect of any
escape sequences).
▪ However, there are times we would want to print values that are
stored in variables (memory).
▪ To do so we would have to use control strings.

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PRINTF

▪ For example:
int age = 50; //the variable is age and the value stored is 50
printf(“%d \n”, age); // to print the value 50 as an integer
Printf(“I am %d years old”, age); // printing the age from memory

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PRINTF

▪ For example:
int score = 4; //the variable is score and the value stored is 4
float weight = 90.61;
printf(“Zlatan Ibrahimovic who scored %d goals in the last game
weighs %g kilograms”, score, weight);
// combining various various variables in one print statement

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PRINTF

▪ In the last example, a number of variables were combined in

one printf() statement.
▪ It is important to take close notice of how the control strings
and their respective variables are ordered.
▪ Misplacing them would not produce the desired output.

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PRINTF

▪ The control strings can also be used to specify the length of

value to be displayed as well as how many decimal points a
floating point has.
▪ Find out more on how these are done.

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SCANF

▪ Input data can be entered into the computer from a standard

input device by means of a C library function by name scanf().
▪ This function can be used to input any combination of
numerical values, single characters and strings.

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SCANF

▪ The general syntax for using scanf is:

scanf(“control string”, arg_1, arg_2,…, arg_n);

▪ where control string refers to a string containing certain

formatting information, and arg_1, arg_2,…, arg_n are
arguments that represent the individual input data items.

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SCANF

▪ A lot has already been said on control strings. So it’s okay to

start taking examples.
▪ Imagine if you were to take the age from a user. It can be done
doing the following.
int personAge;
scanf(“%d”, &personAge);

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SCANF

▪ We first declared the integer variable personAge which would

hold the person’s age.
▪ Then using the scanf() statement we patiently wait for the
person to enter the age and store the age in the declared
variable called personAge.
▪ So when the compiler gets to the line with the scanf()
statement it would keep blinking a cursor until the person
enters a value
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SCANF

▪ The entered value would be treated as an integer because we

specified %d as the control string.
▪ The entered value is stored in the variable personAge.
▪ Once stored it can always be retrieved later in the program.

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& - THE “ADDRESS OF” OPERATOR

▪ You must have been wondering why we placed an ampersand

(&) before the variable personAge when using the scanf
statement.
▪ This ampersand is known as the “address of” operator and it is
used for accessing the address (memory location) of the
declared variable where we want to store the value.

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& - THE “ADDRESS OF” OPERATOR

▪ Without the ampersand (&) the scanf statement would not work
as we want it to.
▪ The statement &personAge would provide the compiler with the
address of the variable personAge.
▪ This address of operator can also be used in the printf
statement to print out the memory addresses of variables using
the control string %p. More of this would be covered later when
treating the topic Pointers.
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SCANF – MULTIPLE USER INPUT

▪ There are times when there would be the need of taking

multiple user inputs.
▪ For example taking 3 exam scores from the user in order to
compute the average score.
▪ There are two ways of doing this. The next few slides would
demonstrate this.

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SCANF – MULTIPLE USER INPUT

One way of getting it done is by writing the scanf statement each

time a value is to be taken. For example:
float score_1, score_2, score_3;
scanf(“%g”, &score_1);
scanf(“%g”, &score_2);
scanf(“%g”, &score_3);

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SCANF – MULTIPLE USER INPUT

Another way of getting it done is by writing the scanf statement

just once, while comma-separating the arguments. For example:
float score_1, score_2, score_3;
scanf(“%g %g %g”, &score_1, &score_2, &score_3);
It should however be noted that the control strings are not comma-
separated.

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GETCHAR AND PUTCHAR

▪ getchar() and putchar() are also functions in the standard input

and output header file which work mainly with characters.
▪ getchar() is responsible for taking a character value from a
user (input) and putchar() is responsible for displaying a
character value to a user.

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GETCHAR AND PUTCHAR

▪ The syntax for getchar() is

declared character variable = getchar();
▪ For example
char choice = getchar();
▪ Since it is an input function, this would cause the compiler to
patiently wait while blinking a cursor until the user enters a
character value which would be stored in the variable choice.
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GETCHAR AND PUTCHAR

▪ The syntax for putchar() is

putchar(character variable);
▪ For example
putchar(choice);
▪ Since it is an output function, this would cause the compiler to
display the character value which was stored in the variable
choice.
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GETS AND PUTS

▪ The gets() and puts() functions are also input and output
functions targeted mainly for string values.
▪ How they are used would be covered later when treating the
topic Strings.

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 THANKS!
Any questions?
You can find me at
elielkeelson@gmail.com & ekeelson@knust.edu.gh

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