C Programming For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Appendix F

Conversion Characters

Conversion Character	What It Displays
%%	Percent character (%)
%c	Single character (char)
%d	Integer value (short, int)
%e	Floating-point value in scientific notation using a little E (float, double)
%E	Floating-point value in scientific notation using a big E (float, double)
%f	Floating-point value in decimal notation (float, double)
%g	Substitution of %f or %e, whichever is shorter (float, double)
%G	Substitution of %f or %E, whichever is shorter (float, double)
%i	Integer value (short, int)
%ld	Long integer value (long int)
%o	Unsigned octal value; no leading zero
%p	Memory location in hexadecimal (*pointer)
%s	String (char *)
%u	Unsigned integer (unsigned short, unsigned int, unsigned long)
%x	Unsigned hexadecimal value, lowercase (short, int, long)
%X	Unsigned hexadecimal value, capital letters (short, int, long)

Conversion-character formatting

The options available for conversion characters in C are extensive. The printf() man page lists many of them, with some requiring a bit of experimentation to get them correct. Generally speaking, here's the format for the typical conversion character:

%-pw.dn

Only the first and last characters are required: % is the percent sign that prefixes all conversion characters, and n is the conversion character(s).

–	The minus sign; works with the w option to right-justify output.
p	The padding character, which is either ...