C float type

What are floating-point values

C provides two main floating-point representations:

• float (single precision)
• double (double precision).

The numbers 5.5, 8.3, and -12.6 are all floating-point numbers. Floating-point numbers must contain a decimal point. So 5.0 is a floating-point number, while 5 is an integer.

Range for float

A floating-point number has a fractional part and a biased exponent. Float occupies 4 bytes and double occupies 8 bytes.

Example - float type

The following code define two variables, one int and one float variable and output to the console.

#include <stdio.h>
 // w ww  .j a  v  a 2 s.  c  o m
int main()
{
      float price = 1.45;
 
      printf("That be $%f, please.\n",price);
      return(0);
}

The code above generates the following result.

Example - divide two floats

When using a floating-point number in printf, the %f conversion is used. To print the expression 1.0/3.0, we use this statement:

#include<stdio.h>
/* w w w .ja v a 2 s . com*/
int main(void){
    printf("The answer is %f\n", 1.0/3.0);
}

The code above generates the following result.