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Strings

Communication using arrays.

So far we have examined variables that can contain integers, floating-point numbers, and values that represent individual text characters. But what if you need a variable that can contain a sequence of text characters, such as a name in a database of diners at a restaurant, as in the examples for last chapter? That's where strings and string variables come in.

A string value is a sequence of text characters that can become a value for a string variable. Both a string value and a string variable can be referred to as a string, depending on context.

In C, a string value is represented by text characters enclosed by double quotes:

"This is a string value."

A string can contain any character, including special control characters, such as the tab character \t, the newline character \n, the "bell" character \7 (which causes the terminal to beep when it is displayed), and so on.

We have been using string values since we introduced the printf command early in the book. (See The form of a C program.) To cause your terminal to beep twice, include the following statement in a C program:

printf("This is a string value. Beep! Beep! \7\7");