Bittu KumarHello everyone, This is my 1st post on dev.to in which I would like to tell you about ESCAPE SEQUENCES IN C...
In C, escape sequences are special character sequences that represent characters which cannot be easily typed or are non-printable. Here’s a brief overview of some common escape sequences and an example demonstrating their usage:-
LIST OF COMMON ESCAPE SEQUENCES IN C
. \\ - Backslash
Represents a literal backslash.
Example: printf("This is a backslash: \\");
// Output: This ia a backslash: \
. \n - Newline
Moves the cursor to the next line.
Example: printf("Hello\nWorld");
// Output:
Hello
World
. \t - Horizontal Tab
Moves the cursor to the next tab stop.
Example: printf("Name \tAge\nAlice \t30");
// Output:
Name Age
Alice 30
. \r - Carriage Return
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current line.
Example: printf("12345\rAB");
// Output: AB345
. \a - Alert (Bell)
Example: printf("Warning!\a");
Output : Produces an audible bell sound (might not be heard on all systems).
. \0 - Null Character
Marks the end of a string in C.
Example: char str[] = "Hello\0World";
Output : // Only "Hello" is printed.
Example Code - Here’s a concise example showing some of these escape sequences in action:-
int main() {
printf("This is a backslash: \ \n");
printf("This is on a new line.\n");
printf("Here is a tab:\tTabbed text.\n");
printf("Carriage return:\rOverwritten\n");
printf("Alert sound:\a\n");
printf("Null character example: Hello\0World\n")
return 0;
}
Explanation of Output
- \: Outputs a single backslash.
- \n: Moves to the next line.
- \t: Inserts a tab space.
- \r: Overwrites the beginning of the current line with new text.
- \a: Triggers an alert sound (if supported).
- \0: Ends the string at "Hello", so "World" is not printed.
Escape sequences are essential for formatting output and including special characters in strings in C programming.
