C Advanced: Using quotes

In C you might find yourself using double quotes in some cases, and single quotes in other cases.

In some languages, there’s no difference between the two. But in C, there is difference, and you’ll use one vs the other depending on the need.

When can you use single quotes and when can you use double quotes?

Single quotes are used to identify a single character (char value):

char letter = 'a';

Double quotes are used to create a string literal:

char *name = "Flavio";

Note that you can create a single-letter string literal:

char *letter = "a";

But remember that a string is composed by the characters of the string, plus a 0 character at the end, which makes single-letter string literals take double the space of a single character.

Lessons in this unit:

0: Introduction
1: Input and output
2: Variable scope
3: Static variables
4: Global variables
5: Type definitions
6: Enumerations
7: Structures
8: Command line parameters
9: Header files
10: The preprocessor
11: NULL values
12: Boolean values
13: Nesting functions
14: Conversion specifiers
15: ▶︎ Using quotes
16: String length
17: Returning strings
18: Array length
19: Looping through arrays
20: Checking character values
21: Printing percentage signs
22: Troubleshooting: Implicit function declarations

Join my AI Workshop!

The Web Development BOOTCAMP cohort starts in February 2026