还有一种想法是将数字转换为十六进制格式，然后将每个十六进制密码解码为四个“位”(1和0)。Sprintf可以为我们做位操作:

const char* binary(int n) {
  static const char binnums[16][5] = { "0000","0001","0010","0011",
    "0100","0101","0110","0111","1000","1001","1010","1011","1100","1101","1110","1111" };
  static const char* hexnums = "0123456789abcdef";
  static char inbuffer[16], outbuffer[4*16];
  const char *i;
  sprintf(inbuffer,"%x",n); // hexadecimal n -> inbuffer
  for(i=inbuffer; *i!=0; ++i) { // for each hexadecimal cipher
    int d = strchr(hexnums,*i) - hexnums; // store its decimal value to d
    char* o = outbuffer+(i-inbuffer)*4; // shift four characters in outbuffer
    sprintf(o,"%s",binnums[d]); // place binary value of d there
  }
  return strchr(outbuffer,'1'); // omit leading zeros
}

puts(binary(42)); // outputs 101010

下面的函数返回给定无符号整数的二进制表示形式，使用不带前导零的指针算术:

const char* toBinaryString(unsigned long num)
{
    static char buffer[CHAR_BIT*sizeof(num)+1];
    char* pBuffer = &buffer[sizeof(buffer)-1];

    do *--pBuffer = '0' + (num & 1);
    while (num >>= 1);
    return pBuffer;
}

注意，不需要显式设置NUL结束符，因为buffer表示一个具有静态存储持续时间的对象，该对象已经被全0填充。

通过简单地修改num形式参数的类型，可以很容易地将其适应为无符号long long(或另一个无符号整数)。

CHAR_BIT要求包含<limits.h>。

下面是一个用法示例:

int main(void)
{
    printf(">>>%20s<<<\n", toBinaryString(1));
    printf(">>>%-20s<<<\n", toBinaryString(254));
    return 0;
}

其期望输出为:

>>>                   1<<<
>>>11111110            <<<

也许有人会发现这个解决方案很有用:

void print_binary(int number, int num_digits) {
    int digit;
    for(digit = num_digits - 1; digit >= 0; digit--) {
        printf("%c", number & (1 << digit) ? '1' : '0');
    }
}

C标准库中没有这样输出二进制的格式化函数。printf家族支持的所有格式操作都是针对人类可读的文本。

const char* byte_to_binary(int x)
{
    static char b[sizeof(int)*8+1] = {0};
    int y;
    long long z;

    for (z = 1LL<<sizeof(int)*8-1, y = 0; z > 0; z >>= 1, y++) {
        b[y] = (((x & z) == z) ? '1' : '0');
    }
    b[y] = 0;

    return b;
}

你可以使用一个小表格来提高速度。类似的技术在嵌入式世界中也很有用，例如，反转一个字节:

const char *bit_rep[16] = {
    [ 0] = "0000", [ 1] = "0001", [ 2] = "0010", [ 3] = "0011",
    [ 4] = "0100", [ 5] = "0101", [ 6] = "0110", [ 7] = "0111",
    [ 8] = "1000", [ 9] = "1001", [10] = "1010", [11] = "1011",
    [12] = "1100", [13] = "1101", [14] = "1110", [15] = "1111",
};

void print_byte(uint8_t byte)
{
    printf("%s%s", bit_rep[byte >> 4], bit_rep[byte & 0x0F]);
}

1我主要指的是嵌入式应用程序，其中优化器不是那么激进，速度差异是可见的。