Null is an character then why not if part is evaluated here??

Question

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
char a[] = "\0";
if(printf("%s", a))
printf("the string is empty");
else
printf("the string is not empty");
return 0;
}

Answer 1

Preity
printf function returns number of characters *successfully printed* to console screen.
(You probably know)

'\0' is still a charecter but when it's used as a part of a string it actually terminates string.

Try to run:
printf("%s","foo\0bar");

You'll get "foo" (not "foo\0bar") as resulting string.

Since you don't actually print a null and use it for indicating end of string, printf will not count it as a printed charecter and will return 0 for an empty string ended with '\0'

This `0` number returned by printf is implicitly typecasted to boolean `false` , causing `else` part to be executed instead of `if` .