Using %s in C correctly - very basic level

Question

I know that %s is a string of characters, but I don\'t know how to use it. Can anyone provide me a very basic example of how its used and how its different from char ?

Answer 1

%s is the representation of an array of char

char string[10] // here is a array of chars, they max length is 10;
char character; // just a char 1 letter/from the ascii map

character = 'a'; // assign 'a' to character
printf("character %c  ",a); //we will display 'a' to stout

so string is an array of char we can assign multiple character per space of memory

string[0]='h';
string[1]='e';
string[2]='l';
string[3]='l';
string[4]='o';
string[5]=(char) 0;//asigning the last element of the 'word' a mark so the string ends

this assignation can be done at initialization like char word="this is a word" // the word array of chars got this string now and is statically defined

toy can also assign values to the array of chars assigning it with functions like strcpy;

strcpy(string,"hello" );

this do the same as the example and automatically add the (char) 0 at the end

so if you print it with %S printf("my string %s",string);

and how string is a array we can just display part of it

//                         the array    one char
printf("first letter of wrd %s     is    :%c ",string,string[1]  );