The book I'm using gives an example as following:
This program sounds the bell.
What does this program mean? Does this program mean that we can hear a ringing bell? I can't hear any ringing bell sound!!!Code:#include "stdio.h" int main() { printf("\a"); return 0; }
Last edited by Sharifhs; 08-11-2010 at 12:03 AM. Reason: Added last line
It could be a beep, or something like that.Originally Posted by Sharifhs
Look up a C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
IIRC, a is for for alert. Beeps are alerting. Something else that is alerting would be a valid replacement for a beep.
But I couldn't hear that!!!
It's undoubtedly platform dependant. Your platform probably does not choose to make any sound when printing that char. This is not surprising since the roots of that behaviour go back a good 20 years give or take, and most people do not run an OS anywhere near that old.
My homepage
Advice: Take only as directed - If symptoms persist, please see your debugger
Linus Torvalds: "But it clearly is the only right way. The fact that everybody else does it some other way only means that they are wrong"
You could use this if you're on Windows: Beep Function (Windows)
Maybe you have your speaker off or low volume?
but it should display the beeping character(\a), isn't it? In my windows xp platform, either one is not working.
It probably uses the mobo speaker, so volume probably doesn't matter. Dos your computer have a speaker on it's mobo? I don't know a lot about hardware, but you probably do have one, I do on all my computers, and they're used by BIOS to communicate errors. Possibly it's broken?
The '\a' is the mobo beep, which not all mobo's have. My last build, the beeper came in a small plastic bag, and you had to install it yourself.
The board I'm on right now will beep, but will NOT beep the first time printf("\a"); is called. Second time and up, the beep will sound. This is with WindowsXP and using Turbo C.
My "alert" or bell in a C program, is NOT the same sound as my Windows error sound. Control characters in C, are not printed - they may show their result on the console - like \b\b shows a backspace, but they are meant to DO something, not to be printed out, as displayed char's themselves.
Last edited by Adak; 08-11-2010 at 06:31 AM.
See, Adak had to go back to an anchient compiler to get it to beep!
This functionality is very old hat. Forget about getting it to do anything.
My homepage
Advice: Take only as directed - If symptoms persist, please see your debugger
Linus Torvalds: "But it clearly is the only right way. The fact that everybody else does it some other way only means that they are wrong"
It works with MinGW GCC on Win7 x64. It's not a mobo beep though, Win7 emulates the mobo speakers and uses the normal speakers instead.
Probably closer to 50 years! I remember the ASR-33 (teletype) had a bell. '\a' translates to the ASCII character 007, so its definition is BEL.
