C Program to Find ASCII Value of a Character

In C programming, a character variable holds ASCII value (an integer number between 0 an 127) rather than character itself. You will learn how to find ASCII value of a character in this program.

To understand this example, you should have the knowledge of following C programming topics:

C programming data types
C Programming Constants and Variables
C Programming Input Output (I/O): printf() and scanf()

A character variable holds ASCII value (an integer number between 0 and 127) rather than that character itself in C programming. That value is known as ASCII value.

For example, ASCII value of 'A' is 65.

What this means is that, if you assign 'A' to a character variable, 65 is stored in that variable rather than 'A' itself.

Program to Print ASCII Value

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
    char c;
    printf("Enter a character: ");

    // Reads character input from the user
    scanf("%c", &c);  
    
    // %d displays the integer value of a character
    // %c displays the actual character
    printf("ASCII value of %c = %d", c, c);
    return 0;
}

Output

Enter a character: G
ASCII value of G = 71

In this program, user is asked to enter a character which is stored in variable c. The ASCII value of that character is stored in variable c rather than that variable itself.

When %d format string is used, 71 (ASCII value of 'G') is displayed.

When %c format string is used, 'G' itself is displayed.