isprint

 

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Null-terminated byte strings

Functions
Character manipulation
isalnum isalpha islower isupper isdigit isxdigit isblank (C99)	iscntrl isgraph isspace isprint ispunct tolower toupper
Conversions to and from numeric formats
atoiatolatoll (C99) atof strtolstrtoll (C99) strtoulstrtoull (C99)	strtoimaxstrtoumax (C99)(C99) strtofstrtodstrtold (C99)(C99) strfromfstrfromdstrfroml (C23)(C23)(C23)
String manipulation
strcpystrcpy_s (C11) strncpystrncpy_s (C11) strcatstrcat_s (C11)	strncatstrncat_s (C11) strxfrm strdup (C23) strndup (C23)
String examination
strlenstrnlen_s (C11) strcmp strncmp strcoll strchr strrchr	strspn strcspn strpbrk strstr strtokstrtok_s (C11)
Memory manipulation
memchr memcmp memsetmemset_explicitmemset_s (C23)(C11)	memcpymemcpy_s (C11) memmovememmove_s (C11) memccpy (C23)
Miscellaneous
strerrorstrerror_sstrerrorlen_s (C11)(C11)

 

Defined in header <ctype.h>
int isprint( int ch );

Checks if the given character can be printed, i.e. it is either a number (0123456789), an uppercase letter (ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ), a lowercase letter (abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz), a punctuation character (!"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{|}~), or space, or any character classified as printable by the current C locale.

The behavior is undefined if the value of ch is not representable as unsigned char and is not equal to EOF.

Parameters

ch

-

character to classify

Return value

Non-zero value if the character can be printed, zero otherwise.

Example

Run this code

#include <ctype.h>
#include <locale.h>
#include <stdio.h>
 
int main(void)
{
    unsigned char c = '\xa0'; // the non-breaking space in ISO-8859-1
    printf("In the default C locale, \\xa0 is %sprintable\n", isprint(c)?"":"not ");
    setlocale(LC_ALL, "en_GB.iso88591");
    printf("In ISO-8859-1 locale, \\xa0 is %sprintable\n", isprint(c)?"":"not ");
}

Possible output:

In the default C locale, \xa0 is not printable
In ISO-8859-1 locale, \xa0 is printable

References

• C23 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2024):

• 7.4.1.8 The isprint function (p: TBD)

• C17 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2018):

• 7.4.1.8 The isprint function (p: 146)

• C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):

• 7.4.1.8 The isprint function (p: 202)

• C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):

• 7.4.1.8 The isprint function (p: 183)

• C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):

• 4.3.1.7 The isprint function

See also

iswprint (C95)	checks if a wide character is a printing character (function)
C++ documentation for isprint

ASCII values			characters	iscntrl iswcntrl	isprint iswprint	isspace iswspace	isblank iswblank	isgraph iswgraph	ispunct iswpunct	isalnum iswalnum	isalpha iswalpha	isupper iswupper	islower iswlower	isdigit iswdigit	isxdigit iswxdigit
decimal	hexadecimal	octal
0–8	\x0–\x8	\0–\10	control codes (NUL, etc.)	≠0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
9	\x9	\11	tab (\t)	≠0	0	≠0	≠0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
10–13	\xA–\xD	\12–\15	whitespaces (\n, \v, \f, \r)	≠0	0	≠0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
14–31	\xE–\x1F	\16–\37	control codes	≠0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
32	\x20	\40	space	0	≠0	≠0	≠0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
33–47	\x21–\x2F	\41–\57	!"#$%&'()*+,-./	0	≠0	0	0	≠0	≠0	0	0	0	0	0	0
48–57	\x30–\x39	\60–\71	0123456789	0	≠0	0	0	≠0	0	≠0	0	0	0	≠0	≠0
58–64	\x3A–\x40	\72–\100	:;<=>?@	0	≠0	0	0	≠0	≠0	0	0	0	0	0	0
65–70	\x41–\x46	\101–\106	ABCDEF	0	≠0	0	0	≠0	0	≠0	≠0	≠0	0	0	≠0
71–90	\x47–\x5A	\107–\132	GHIJKLMNOP QRSTUVWXYZ	0	≠0	0	0	≠0	0	≠0	≠0	≠0	0	0	0
91–96	\x5B–\x60	\133–\140	[\]^_`	0	≠0	0	0	≠0	≠0	0	0	0	0	0	0
97–102	\x61–\x66	\141–\146	abcdef	0	≠0	0	0	≠0	0	≠0	≠0	0	≠0	0	≠0
103–122	\x67–\x7A	\147–\172	ghijklmnop qrstuvwxyz	0	≠0	0	0	≠0	0	≠0	≠0	0	≠0	0	0
123–126	\x7B–\x7E	\173–\176	{|}~	0	≠0	0	0	≠0	≠0	0	0	0	0	0	0
127	\x7F	\177	backspace character (DEL)	≠0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0