Use "*" as argument of function main()

Question

When I want to use * as an argument of function main(), the shell will expand it to the all files in the current directory. How to avoid this?

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    printf("%d\n", argc);
    for(int i=0; i<argc-1; i++)
    {
        printf("%s \n", argv[i]);
    }
    printf("\n");
}

On the command line, it will output:

atlas@localhost ~/D/P/C> ./expr 2 3 4 + *
13
./expr 
2 
3 
4 
+ 
Command.c 
Readlines.c 
catlas.h 
expr 
expr.c 
find 
find.c 

Answer 1

The * is a special wildcard used in shell context. The shell will always expand the * before it is actually passed to your program. To take the input of * as a command line argument character, you can enclose the * in quotes, like "*"or use an escape character \*, as suggested in other answers, to stop the expansion.

Otherwise, The expansion of * is being performed by the shell before it is passed to your program.