C Variables
Variables are containers for storing data values, like numbers and characters.
In C, there are different types of variables (defined with different keywords), for example:
int- stores integers (whole numbers), without decimals, such as123or-123float- stores floating point numbers, with decimals, such as19.99or-19.99char- stores single characters, such as'a'or'B'. Characters are surrounded by single quotes
Declaring (Creating) Variables
To create a variable, specify the type and assign it a value:
Syntax
type variableName = value;
Where type is one of C types (such as int), and
variableName is the name of the variable (such as x or
myName). The equal sign is used to assign a value to the variable.
So, to create a variable that should store a number, look at the following example:
Example
Create a variable called myNum of type int and assign the value 15
to it:
int myNum = 15;
You can also declare a variable without assigning the value, and assign the value later:
Example
// Declare a variable
int myNum;
// Assign a value to the variable
myNum = 15;
Output Variables
You learned from the output chapter that you can output values/print text with the printf() function:
In many other programming languages (like Python, Java, and C++), you would normally use a print function to display the value of a variable. However, this is not possible in C:
To output variables in C, you must get familiar with something called "format specifiers", which you will learn about in the next chapter.
