Calculate the Area of a Circle in C
In this tutorial, we’ll develop a simple C program that calculates the area of a circle. The formula for the area of a circle is:
area = π × r × r
Program Code
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
float radius, area;
const float PI = 3.14159265;
// Prompt the user to enter the radius
printf("Enter the radius of the circle: ");
scanf("%f", &radius);
// Calculate the area
area = PI * radius * radius;
// Display the result
printf("The area of the circle with radius %.2f is %.2f\n", radius, area);
return 0;
}
How the Program Works
- We include the standard I/O library:
<stdio.h>
. - We declare two
float
variables:radius
andarea
. - We define a constant
PI
for the value of π (3.14159265). - The user is prompted to enter the radius of the circle.
- We use the
scanf()
function to read the user’s input. - We calculate the area using the formula area = π × r × r.
- Finally, the program displays the calculated area using
printf()
with two decimal precision.
Output
Here’s what the output might look like:
Enter the radius of the circle: 5
The area of the circle with radius 5.00 is 78.54
Conclusion
This simple C program demonstrates how to use basic I/O and arithmetic operations to calculate the area of a circle. You can expand upon this by adding error checking for invalid radius values or by using mathematical libraries for more precision.