How can I print filled / unfilled square character using printf in c? - c

Question

I am trying to print "□" and "■" using c.
I tried printf("%c", (char)254u); but it didn't work.
Any help? Thank you!

Answer 1

I do not know what is (char)254u in your code. First you set locale to unicode, next you just printf it. That is it.
#include <locale.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "en_US.UTF-8");
printf("%lc", u'□');
return 0;
}

Answer 2

You can use directly like this :
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("■");
return 0;
}

Answer 3

You can print Unicode characters using _setmode.
Sets the file translation mode. learn more
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <io.h>
int main(void) {
_setmode(_fileno(stdout), _O_U16TEXT);
wprintf(L"\x25A0\x25A1\n");
return 0;
}
output
■□

Answer 4

As other answers have mentioned, you have need to set the proper locale to use the UTF-8 encoding, defined by the Unicode Standard. Then you can print it with %lc using any corresponding number. Here is a minimal code example:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <locale.h>
int main() {
setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "en_US.UTF-8"); // Defined proper UTF-8 locale
printf("%lc\n", 254); // Using '%lc' to specify wchar_t instead of char
return 0;
}
If you want to store it in a variable, you must use a wchar_t, which allows the number to be mapped to its Unicode symbol. This answer provides more detail.
wchar_t x = 254;
printf("%lc\n", x);