C Programming - Unusual Result

Question

I am trying to follow the Codecademy C programming video with this code

# include <stdio.h>
# include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
    char characterName[10] = "George";
    int age = 35;
    
    printf("There once was a man named %s\n", &characterName);
    printf("he was %d years old\n", &age);
    return 0;
}

But my output is giving me what looks like a random number in onlinegdb. My variable is initalized so shouldn't it work

Answer 1

You're printing the address of characterName and age, not the contents. Remove '&' from '&characterName' and '&age' and it should work.

Answer 2

Your code correctly is

printf("There once was a man named %s\n", characterName);
printf("he was %d years old\n", age);

Your issue was that you did not provide the value to be printed, but the memory address of the value to be printed (see the & operator).

When you compile and run your code, the compiler even gives a warning about this.

Answer 3

it should be like

# include <stdio.h>
# include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
    char characterName[10] = "George";
    int age = 35;
    
    printf("There once was a man named %s\n", characterName);
    printf("he was %d years old\n", age);
    return 0;
}

because while writing printf statement you should not use"&" 

Answer 4

Your code should be as below

# include <stdio.h>
# include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
    char characterName[10] = "George";
    int age = 35;
    
    printf("There once was a man named %s\n", characterName);
    printf("he was %d years old\n", age);
    return 0;
}

Answer 5

In the above code, the printf statement ends with '&' which is not correct, try to rerun after removing those.