So far we have examined variables that can contain integers,
floating-point numbers, and values that represent individual text
characters. But what if you need a variable that can contain a sequence
of text characters, such as a name in a database of diners at a
restaurant, as in the examples for last chapter? That's where strings
and string variables come in.
A string value is a sequence of text characters that can become a
value for a string variable. Both a string value and a string
variable can be referred to as a string, depending on context.
In C, a string value is represented by text characters enclosed by
double quotes:
"This is a string value."
A string can contain any character, including special control
characters, such as the tab character \t, the newline character
\n, the "bell" character \7 (which causes the terminal
to beep when it is displayed), and so on.
We have been using string values since we introduced the printf
command early in the book. (See The form of a C program.) To cause
your terminal to beep twice, include the following statement in a C
program:
printf("This is a string value. Beep! Beep! \7\7");
