What does %s mean?

In this code:

#include 

char* greet() {
    return "Hello";
}

int main() {
    printf("%s Mia\n", greet());
    printf("Next statement");

    return   0;
}

%s is a format specifier used for strings. That means when the program runs, %s is replaced by whatever the greet() function returns.

Since greet() returns the text "Hello", that text takes the place of %s, so the output becomes:

Hello Mia

If you've seen format specifiers like %d (for integers) or %f (for floating-point numbers), %s works the same way—it's just specifically used to print strings.

Here's a closer look at what this line is doing:

printf("%s Mia\n", greet());

This tells the program: Print a string (%s), followed by the word “Mia” and a newline. Replace %s with the return value from the greet() function.

So effectively, it behaves like:

printf("Hello Mia\n");

Also, the greet() function is written as:

char* greet() {
    return "Hello";
}

It returns a string (specifically, a pointer to the string "Hello"), which is exactly what %s expects in a printf call.