University of Central Florida (UCF) EGN3211 Engineering Analysis and Computation Final Practice Exam

In C programming, variable shadowing occurs when a variable declared within a certain scope (like a function or a block) has the same name as a variable declared in an outer scope. This means that the inner variable "hides" or "shadows" the outer variable, leading to potential confusion about which variable is being referenced.

In this particular question, if the inner variable is indeed initialized to 20 inside a scope (like a function or a loop), then when accessed within that same scope, it indeed refers to the inner variable, which shadows any outer variable with the same name. The outer variable, which was likely declared with a different value (10), is not accessible from the inner scope. Thus, the correct value that the inner variable represents is 20.

This highlights the importance of understanding variable scope and lifetime in C programming, as accessing the inner variable does not change the outer variable's value, and developers must be careful when naming variables to avoid unintended shadowing effects that can lead to bugs in a program.