Final answer:
To format floating-point numbers in printf, use format specifiers to indicate width, decimal precision, and zero-filling. For example, "%010.2f" formats a number with 2 decimal places, width of 10, and zero-filled. Multiplying by powers of ten and using scientific notation also involve adjusting the number with zeros.
Step-by-step explanation:
To format floating-point numbers using printf, you can specify the width, number of decimal positions, and zero-filling using format specifiers. Let's assume you have a floating-point number and you want to format it to 2 decimal places, with a total width of 10 characters, and the empty spaces filled with zeros:
printf("%010.2f", number);
In this example:
- % starts the format specifier.
- 0 indicates that empty space should be filled with zeros.
- 10 defines the total width of the printed number (including decimal point and digits).
- .2 specifies that two digits should follow the decimal point.
- f indicates that the number is a floating-point type.
If you set the width less than the number of digits that the number has before the decimal point, printf will override the width to fit the number.
When numbers are multiplied by a power of ten, moving the decimal point helps us adjust the number accordingly. For instance, when multiplying 2.4 by 100, we move the decimal point two places to the right to get 240.
In the context of scientific notation, a zero-filling pattern is used when expressing very large or very small numbers. For example, the number 0.00347 can be written as 3.47 x 10-3 by moving the decimal three places to the right.