Input and Output Functions in C
Categories: C Programming language C language
Input and Output Functions in C
Introduction
What will be your answer if I ask you what is an algorithm? Then you may simply reply that it is a step-by-step procedure over a set of instructions that provide us the desired Output. Then my cross-question will be, "Desired Output for what?" Again it is easy, “Output for an Input”. So this means most of the algorithms/programs take an Input to perform a step-by-step procedure to provide the desired Output.
Input is given through the keyboard and output may be shown on screen or printed through printer or by another way, but for the different device, there may be a different type of process for input/output which may be a problem for programer, to avoid this all input/output are done using streams in C which handles input/output without taking care of from where input coming and what is the destination of the output. It can be added to any C program by introducing Standard Input/Output library using stdio.h header.
Stream is the sequence of bytes of data in form of a sequence of characters. While taking input we get a sequence of characters entering into our program, that is input stream and for output, we send a sequence of characters out from our program which is output stream. The main advantage of the stream is it makes input/output programming independent of the device.
What is Input in C?
Have you visited ATMs? If yes, then you know ATM is an Electronic Banking outlet that provides transactions to the users and based on some set of instructions, but for every user, it requires some details like a PIN number, which means most of the algorithms have some set of instructions but needs some external data/information to work over it. Input refers to the process of feeding data into the program. Data can be in the form of a command line or from a file. Random Access Memory is kept by the C program while executing, so when data come from an external location to the program it is moved to RAM where the program can access it and that external data is known as input.
What is Output in C?
Let's continue our ATM story, so when users provide PIN number and other required inputs, then the ATM machine after performing all the instructions provides cash, bank details, or other desired stuff, which means the algorithm after performing on the input provides the desired results but it may be in different ways, like the output on screen or a print through a printer or in another way. Output refers to the process of sending data out of the program or simply sending data to the location out of the program memory. The destination of the data may be a screen, printer, or Disk. For getting output it is not always compulsory to have an input, like an algorithm for generating random numbers, it will simply return random numbers without any input.