C Program to Find All Roots of Quadratic Equation

• Write a C program to find roots of a quadratic equation.

A quadratic equation is a second order equation having a single variable. Any quadratic equation can be represented as ax² + bx + c = 0, where a, b and c are constants( a can’t be 0) and x is unknown variable.

For Example

2x² + 5x + 3 = 0 is a quadratic equation where a, b and c are 2, 5 and 3 respectively.

To calculate the roots of quadratic equation we can use below formula. There are two solutions of a quadratic equation.
x = (-2a + sqrt(D))/2
x = (-2a – sqrt(D))/2
where, D is Discriminant, which differentiate the nature of the roots of quadratic equation.

C program to find all roots of a quadratic equation

/*
* C Program to find square roots of a quadratic equation 
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>
#include <math.h> 
 
int main() {
  float a, b, c, determinant, root1, root2, real, imag;
  printf("Enter coefficients a, b and c of quadratic equation ax^2 + bx + c = 0 \n");
  scanf("%f%f%f", &a, &b, &c);
   
  /* Calculate determinant */
  determinant = b*b - 4*a*c;
   
  if(determinant >= 0) {
      root1= (-b + sqrt(determinant))/(2 * a);
      root2= (-b - sqrt(determinant))/(2 * a);
      printf("Roots of %.2fx^2 + %.2fx + %.2f = 0 are \n%.2f and %.2f",
       a, b, c, root1, root2);
  } else {
    real= -b/(2*a);
    imag = sqrt(-determinant)/(2 * a);
    printf("Roots of %.2fx^2 + %.2fx + %.2f = 0 are \n%.2f+%.2fi and %.2f-%.2fi",
     a, b, c, real, imag, real, imag);
  }
   
  getch();
  return 0;
}

Program Output

Enter coefficients a, b and c of quadratic equation ax^2 + bx + c = 0
1 1 1
Roots of 1.00x^2 + 1.00x + 1.00 = 0 are
-0.50+0.87i and -0.50-0.87i

Enter coefficients a, b and c of quadratic equation ax^2 + bx + c = 0
3 7 2
Roots of 3.00x^2 + 7.00x + 2.00 = 0 are
-0.33 and -2.00