What is the printf format specifier for bool?

Since ANSI C99 there is _Bool or bool via stdbool.h. But is there also a printf format specifier for bool?

I mean something like in that pseudo code:

bool x = true;
printf("%B\n", x);

which would print:

true

There is no format specifier for bool types. However, since any integral type shorter than int is promoted to int when passed down to printf()'s variadic arguments, you can use %d:

bool x = true;
printf("%d\n", x); // prints 1

But why not:

printf(x ? "true" : "false");

or, better:

printf("%s", x ? "true" : "false");

or, even better:

fputs(x ? "true" : "false", stdout);

instead?

There is no format specifier for bool. You can print it using some of the existing specifiers for printing integral types or do something more fancy:

printf("%s", x?"true":"false");

ANSI C99/C11 don't include an extra printf conversion specifier for bool.

But the GNU C library provides an API for adding custom specifiers.

An example:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <printf.h>
#include <stdbool.h>

static int bool_arginfo(const struct printf_info *info, size_t n,
    int *argtypes, int *size)
{
  if (n) {
    argtypes[0] = PA_INT;
    *size = sizeof(bool);
  }
  return 1;
}
static int bool_printf(FILE *stream, const struct printf_info *info,
    const void *const *args)
{
  bool b =  *(const bool*)(args[0]);
  int r = fputs(b ? "true" : "false", stream);
  return r == EOF ? -1 : (b ? 4 : 5);
}
static int setup_bool_specifier()
{
  int r = register_printf_specifier('B', bool_printf, bool_arginfo);
  return r;
}
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  int r = setup_bool_specifier();
  if (r) return 1;
  bool b = argc > 1;
  r = printf("The result is: %B\n", b);
  printf("(written %d characters)\n", r);
  return 0;
}

Since it is a glibc extensions the GCC warns about that custom specifier:

$ gcc -Wall -g    main.c   -o main
main.c: In function ‘main’:
main.c:34:3: warning: unknown conversion type character ‘B’ in format [-Wformat=]
r = printf("The result is: %B\n", b);
^
main.c:34:3: warning: too many arguments for format [-Wformat-extra-args]

Output:

$ ./main
The result is: false
(written 21 characters)
$ ./main 1
The result is: true
(written 20 characters)

In the tradition of itoa():

#define btoa(x) ((x)?"true":"false")

bool x = true;
printf("%s\n", btoa(x));

You can't, but you can print 0 or 1

_Bool b = 1;
printf("%d\n", b);

source

If you like C++ better than C, you can try this:

#include <ios>
#include <iostream>

bool b = IsSomethingTrue();
std::cout << std::boolalpha << b;

To just print 1 or 0 based on the boolean value I just used:

printf("%d\n", !!(42));

Especially useful with Flags:

#define MY_FLAG (1 << 4)
int flags = MY_FLAG;
printf("%d\n", !!(flags & MY_FLAG));

I prefer an answer from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7617479/best-way-to-print-the-result-of-a-bool-as-false-or-true-in-c, just like

printf("%s\n", "false\0true"+6*x);

• x == 0, "false\0true"+ 0" it means "false";
• x == 1, "false\0true"+ 6" it means "true";