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ccharprintfternary

Using empty char in C

I want to use the ternary operator and an empty char '' to spell correctly the word "neightbor" (with or without a "s").

I want to do the following :

printf("There is %d neightbor%c\n", nbNeighbors,  (nbNeighbors>1)?'s':'');

obviously, I get an arror error: empty character constant

How can I menage to use this trick to get the right spelling in one printf ?

Solution

  • You could use a non-printable character but they may end up looking like something else.

    You'd be better off using strings:

    printf("There %s %d neighbor%s\n",
 nbNeighbors != 1 ? "are" : "is",
 nbNeighbors,
 nbNeighbors != 1 ? "s" : ""
);