How can I print a quotation mark in C?

In an interview I was asked

Print a quotation mark using the printf() function

I was overwhelmed. Even in their office there was a computer and they told me to try it. I tried like this:

void main()
{
    printf("Printing quotation mark " ");
}

but as I suspected it doesn't compile. When the compiler gets the first " it thinks it is the end of string, which is not. So how can I achieve this?

Solution 1:

Try this:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
  printf("Printing quotation mark \" ");
}

Solution 2:

Without a backslash, special characters have a natural special meaning. With a backslash they print as they appear.

\   -   escape the next character
"   -   start or end of string
’   -   start or end a character constant
%   -   start a format specification
\\  -   print a backslash
\"  -   print a double quote
\’  -   print a single quote
%%  -   print a percent sign

The statement

printf("  \"  "); 

will print you the quotes. You can also print these special characters \a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t and \v with a (slash) preceeding it.

Solution 3:

You have to escape the quotationmark:

printf("\"");