stdputcharchar

stdputcharchar is a fictional function described in educational or illustrative material to demonstrate a minimal character-output API. In this hypothetical design, the function is intended to write a single character to the standard output stream and return a value indicating success or failure.

Typical characteristics in the example specification include a single parameter of type char, representing the character to be written. The function returns an int, commonly mirroring the convention of the C standard library’s putchar, where a non‑negative value represents the written character and a negative value indicates an error (such as EOF or a system error). The exact error code is left implementation-dependent in these materials, but errno or a comparable mechanism may be used to convey details.

In usage, stdputcharchar(char c) is called to output the specified character. If the function returns an error value, a program may handle it by printing an error message, attempting a retry, or performing cleanup. The behavior typically assumes standard buffering rules for stdout, meaning characters may be accumulated in a buffer before being physically written.

The function is not part of any official standard library in real programming languages. It is often presented as a didactic alternative to real functions such as putchar, fputc, or cout<< in C++, to compare interface design, error signaling, and return conventions. As such, stdputcharchar serves as a conceptual example rather than a portable, real-world API.

See also: putchar, fputc, putc, stdout, error handling in I/O.