printf is used to O/P data to STDOUT (usually the screen). It has many formatting options which we shall look at in a moment.
| 
  #include <stdio.h>
  main()
  {
    printf("This text will appear on the screen\n");  
  }
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printf is passed one formatting argument. The unusual thing about the example (in my mind) is \n, this is actually an escape sequence that signals a new line. Without it, any printf's that follow would O/P to the same line. printf also takes extra arguments which are inserted into the format string at locations marked with a %.
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  #include <stdio.h>
  main()
  {
    int number=42;
    printf("The answer is %i\n", number);  
  }
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What happens here is the %i is seen as a formatting identifer for the next argument (number). In this case an integer is expected.
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