How to print variable addresses in C?

You want to use %p to print a pointer. From the spec:

p The argument shall be a pointer to void. The value of the pointer is converted to a sequence of printing characters, in an implementation-defined manner.

And don't forget the cast, e.g.

printf("%p\n",(void*)&a);

When you intend to print the memory address of any variable or a pointer, using %d won't do the job and will cause some compilation errors, because you're trying to print out a number instead of an address, and even if it does work, you'd have an intent error, because a memory address is not a number. the value 0xbfc0d878 is surely not a number, but an address.

What you should use is %p. e.g.,

#include<stdio.h>

int main(void) {

    int a;
    a = 5;
    printf("The memory address of a is: %p\n", (void*) &a);
    return 0;
}

Good luck!


To print the address of a variable, you need to use the %p format. %d is for signed integers. For example:

#include<stdio.h>

void main(void)
{
  int a;

  printf("Address is %p:",&a);
}