The ASCII value of '\0' is same as ASCII value of 0?

Question

I learned the ASCII value of '\0' is 0, and the ASCII value of 0 is 0x30, but when I try to print their ASCII value using printf, I get the same output:

printf("\'\\0\' : %d\n", '\0');
printf("\'\\0\' in hex : %x\n", '\0');
printf("0 : %d\n", 0);
printf("0 in hex: %x\n", 0);

output:

'\0' : 0
'\0' in hex : 0
0 : 0
0 in hex: 0

why?

Answer 1

The ASCII character '0' is different than the number 0. You are printing the integer 0 in your second pair of printfs instead of '0'.

Try this:

printf("'\\0' : %d\n", '\0');
printf("'\\0' in hex : %x\n", '\0');
printf("'0' : %d\n", '0');
printf("'0' in hex: %x\n", '0');

Also, you don't need to escape ' inside strings. That is, "'" is fine and you don't need to write "\'"

Answer 2

You confuse 0, '\0', and '0'.

The first two of these are the same thing; they just represent an int with value 0.

'0', however, is different, and represents an int with the value of the '0' character, which is 48.