Simple Output by Characters or Lines

This section describes functions for performing character- and line-oriented output.

These functions are declared in the header file `stdio.h'.

Function: int fputc (int c, FILE *stream)

The fputc function converts the character c to type unsigned char, and writes it to the stream stream. EOF is returned if a write error occurs; otherwise the character c is returned.

Function: int putc (int c, FILE *stream)

This is just like fputc, except that most systems implement it as a macro, making it faster. One consequence is that it may evaluate the stream argument more than once, which is an exception to the general rule for macros. putc is usually the best function to use for writing a single character.

Function: int putchar (int c)

The putchar function is equivalent to putc with stdout as the value of the stream argument.

Function: int fputs (const char *s, FILE *stream)

The function fputs writes the string s to the stream stream. The terminating null character is not written. This function does not add a newline character, either. It outputs only the characters in the string.

This function returns EOF if a write error occurs, and otherwise a non-negative value.

For example:

fputs ("Are ", stdout);
fputs ("you ", stdout);
fputs ("hungry?\n", stdout);

outputs the text `Are you hungry?' followed by a newline.

Function: int puts (const char *s)

The puts function writes the string s to the stream stdout followed by a newline. The terminating null character of the string is not written. (Note that fputs does not write a newline as this function does.)

puts is the most convenient function for printing simple messages. For example:

puts ("This is a message.");

Function: int putw (int w, FILE *stream)

This function writes the word w (that is, an int) to stream. It is provided for compatibility with SVID, but we recommend you use fwrite instead (see section Block Input/Output).

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