printf(3S) printf(3S)



NAME printf(), fprintf(), sprintf() - print formatted output
SYNOPSIS #include <stdio.h>
int printf(const char *format, /* [arg,] */ ...);
int fprintf(FILE *stream, const char *format, /* [arg,] */ ...);
int sprintf(char *s, const char *format, /* [arg,] */ ...);
DESCRIPTION printf() places output on the standard output stream stdout.
fprintf() places output on the named output stream.
sprintf() places ``output'', followed by the null character (\0), in consecutive bytes starting at *s. It is the user's responsibility to ensure that enough storage is available.
Each function converts, formats, and prints its args under control of the format. format is a character string containing two types of objects: plain characters that are copied to the output stream, and conversion specifications, each of which results in fetching zero or more args. The results are undefined if there are insufficient args for the format. If the format is exhausted while args remain, excess args are ignored.
Each conversion specification is introduced by the character % or %n$, where n is a decimal integer in the range 1 through {NL_ARGMAX} (NL_ARGMAX is defined in <limits.h>). The %n$ construction indicates that this conversion should be applied to the nth argument, rather than to the next unused one.
An argument can be referenced by a %n$ specification more than once. The two forms of introducing a conversion specification, % and %n$, cannot be mixed within a single format string. When numbered argument specifications are used, specifying the Nth argument requires that all the leading arguments, from the first to the (N-1)th, are specified in the format string. Improper use of %n$ in a format string results in a negative return value.
After the % or %n$, the following appear in sequence:
1. Zero or more flags, which modify the meaning of the conversion specification.
2. An optional string of decimal digits to specify a minimum field width in bytes. If the converted value has fewer characters than the field width, it is be padded on the left


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(or right, if the left-adjustment flag (-), described below, has been given) to the field width. If the field width is preceded by a zero, the string is right adjusted with zero- padding on the left (see the leading-zero flag, 0, described below).
3. A precision that gives the minimum number of digits to appear for the d, i, o, u, x, or X conversions, the number of digits to appear after the radix character for the e and f conversions, the maximum number of significant digits for the g conversion, or the maximum number of bytes to be printed from a string in the s conversion. The precision takes the form of a period followed by a decimal digit string; a null digit string is treated as zero.
4. An optional l (the letter ``ell''), specifying that a following d, i, o, u, x, or X conversion character applies to a long integer arg; an optional l specifying that a following n conversion character applies to a pointer to a long integer arg; an optional h, specifying that a following d, i, o, u, x, or X conversion character applies to a short integer arg; an optional ll, specifying that a following d, i, o, u, x, or X conversion character applies to a long long integer arg; an optional h specifying that a following n conversion character applies to a pointer to a short integer arg; an optional L specifying that a following e, E, f, g, or G conversion character applies to a long double arg. An l, h, ll or L before any other conversion character is ignored.
5. A conversion character that indicates the type of conversion to be applied.
A field width or precision can be indicated by an asterisk instead of a digit string. In this case, an integer arg supplies the field width or precision. The arg that is actually converted is not fetched until the conversion letter is seen, so the args specifying field width, or precision, or both must appear in that order before the arg, if any, to be converted. A negative field width is taken as a - flag followed by a positive field width. A negative precision is taken as if the precision were omitted. Format strings containing %n$ conversion specifications can also indicate a field width or precision by the sequence *n$. The n indicates the position of an integer arg . With the *n$ sequence, the args specifying field width or precision can appear before or after the arg to be converted.
The flag characters and their meanings are:
' The integer portion of the result of a decimal conversion (%i, %d, %u, %f, %g, or %G) will be formatted with thousands' grouping characters. For


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other conversions the behavior is undefined. The nonmonetary grouping character is used.
- The resulting conversion is left-justified within the field.
+ The resulting signed conversion always begins with a sign (+ or -).
blank If the first character of a signed conversion is not a sign, a blank is prefixed to the result. This implies that if the blank and + flags both appear, the blank flag is ignored.
# This flag specifies that the value is converted to an ``alternateform''. For c, d, i, s, n, and u conversions, the flag has no effect. For o conversion, it increases the precision to force the first digit of the result to be a zero. For x or X conversion, a nonzero result is prefixed by 0x or 0X. For a p conversion, a nonzero result is prefixed by 0x. For e, E, f, g, and G conversions, the result always contains a radix character, even if no digits follow the radix. (Normally, a radix character appears in the resulting conversions only if followed by a digit). For g and G conversions, trailing zeros are not removed from the result (which they normally are).
0 Leading zeros (following any indication of sign or base) are used to pad to the field width for all conversion characters. No space padding is performed. If both the 0 and - appear, the 0 flag is ignored. For d, i, o, u, p, x, and X, conversions, if a precision is specified, the 0 flag is ignored.
The conversion characters and their meanings are:
d,i,o,u,x,X The integer arg is converted to signed decimal (d and i are identical), unsigned octal (o), decimal (u), or hexadecimal notation (x and X), respectively; the letters abcdef are used for x conversion and the letters ABCDEF for X conversion. The precision specifies the minimum number of digits to appear. If the value being converted can be represented in fewer digits, it is expanded with leading zeros. (For compatibility with older versions, padding with leading zeros can alternatively be specified by inserting a zero in front of the field width. This does not imply an octal value for the field width). The default precision is 1. The result


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of converting a zero value with a precision of zero is a null string.
f The double arg is converted to decimal notation in the style [-]dddrddd, where r is the radix character. The number of digits after the radix character is equal to the precision specification. If the precision is missing, six digits are output. If the precision is explicitly zero, no radix character appears.
e,E The double arg is converted in the style [- ]drddde+_ddd, where r is the radix character. There is one digit before the radix character and the number of digits after it is equal to the precision; when the precision is missing, six digits are produced; if the precision is zero, no radix character appears. The E format code produces a number with E instead of e introducing the exponent. The exponent always contains at least two digits.
g,G The double arg is printed in style f or e (or in style E in the case of a G format code), with the precision specifying the number of significant digits. The style used depends on the value converted: style e is used only if the exponent resulting from the conversion is less than -4 or greater than or equal to the precision. Trailing zeros are removed from the fractional part of the result; a radix character appears only if it is followed by a digit.
c The integer arg is converted to an unsigned char, and the resulting character is printed.
C The wchar_t arg is converted to an array of bytes representing the single wide character according to the setting of LC_CTYPE. Resulting bytes are printed. If the precision is given, it is ignored. If the field width would otherwise cause the wide character to be split, the wide character is printed and the field width is adjusted upward.
s The arg is taken to be a string (character pointer) and characters from the string are printed until a null character (\0) is encountered or the number of bytes indicated by the precision specification is reached. If the precision is missing, it is taken to be infinite, so all characters up to the first null character are


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printed. A NULL value for arg yields undefined results.
S The arg is taken to be a pointer to a wide character string (wchar_t *). Wide characters from the string are converted to an array of bytes representing the string of wide characters according to the setting of LC_CTYPE. Resulting bytes are printed until a null wide character ((wchar_t)0) is encountered or the number of bytes indicated by the precision is reached. If the precision is missing, it is taken to be infinite, so all wide characters up to the first null wide character are printed. If the field width would otherwise cause the last multibyte character to be split, the last wide character is not printed. A NULL value for arg yields undefined results.
p The value of a pointer to void arg is printed as a sequence of unsigned hexadecimal numbers. The precision specifies the minimum number of digits to appear. If the value being converted can be represented in fewer digits, it is expanded with leading zeros. The default precision is 1. The result of converting a zero value with a precision of zero is a null string.
n A pointer to an integer arg is expected. This pointer is used to store the number of bytes printed on the output stream so far by this call to the function. No argument is converted.
% Print a %; no argument is converted.
In no case does a nonexistent or small field width cause truncation of a field; if the result of a conversion is wider than the field width, the field is expanded to contain the conversion result.
Characters generated by printf(), and fprintf() are printed as if putc() had been called (see putc(3S)).
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES Locale The LC_CTYPE category affects the following features:
+ Plain characters within format strings are interpreted as single byte and/or multibyte characters.
+ Field width is given in terms of bytes. As characters are placed on the output stream, they are interpreted as single byte or multibyte characters and the field width is


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decremented by the length of the character.
+ Precision is given in terms of bytes. As characters are placed on the output stream, they are interpreted as single byte or multibyte characters and the precision is decremented by the length of the character.
+ The return value is given in terms of bytes. As characters are placed on the output stream, they are interpreted as single byte or multibyte characters and the byte count that makes up the return value is incremented by the length of the character.
The LC_NUMERIC category determines the radix character used to print floating-point numbers, and the thousands' grouping characters if the grouping flag ' is on.
International Code Set Support Single byte character code sets are supported. Multibyte character code sets are also supported as described in the LC_CTYPE category above.
RETURN VALUE Each function returns the number of bytes transmitted (excluding the \0 in the case of sprintf() or a negative value if an output error was encountered. Improper use of %n$ in a format string results in a negative return value.
ERRORS printf(), and fprintf() fail if either the stream is unbuffered or stream's buffer needed to be flushed causing an underlying write() call to be invoked (see write(2)), and:
[EAGAIN] The O_NONBLOCK flag is set for the file descriptor underlying stream and the process would be delayed in the write operation.
[EBADF] The file descriptor underlying stream is not a valid file descriptor open for writing.
[EFBIG] An attempt was made to write to a file that exceeds the process's file size limit or the maximum file size (see ulimit(2)).
[EINTR] A signal was caught during the write() system call.
[EIO] The process is in a background process group and is attempting to write to its controlling terminal, TOSTOP is set, the process is neither ignoring nor blocking the SIGTTOU signal, and the


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process group of the process is orphaned.
[ENOSPC] There was no free space remaining on the device containing the file.
[EPIPE] An attempt is made to write to a pipe or FIFO that is not open for reading by any process. A SIGPIPE signal is also sent to the process.
Additional errno values can be set by the underlying write() function (see write(2)).
EXAMPLES To print a date and time in the form "Sunday, July 3, 10:02", where weekday and month are pointers to null-terminated strings:
printf("%s, %s %d, %d:%.2d", weekday, month, day, hour, min);
To print pi to 5 decimal places:
printf("pi = %.5f", 4 * atan(1.0));
To create a language independent date-and-time printing routine write:
printf(format,weekday,month,day,hour,min,2,2);
For American usage, format would point to the string:
"%1$s, %2$s %3$d, %4$*6$.*7$d:%5$*6$.*7$d"
and result in the output:
"Sunday, July 3, 10:02"
For German usage, the string:
"%1$s, %3$s %2$d, %4$*6$.*7$d:%5$*6$.*7$d"
results in the output:
Sonntag, 3 Juli 10:02
WARNINGS Notice that with the c conversion character, an int arg is converted to an unsigned char. Hence, whole multibyte characters cannot be printed using a single c conversion character.
A precision with the s conversion character might result in the truncation of a multibyte character.




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AUTHOR printf(), fprintf(), and sprintf() were developed by AT&T and HP.
SEE ALSO ecvt(3C), ltostr(3C), setlocale(3C), putc(3S), scanf(3S), stdio(3S).
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE printf(): AES, SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3, XPG4, FIPS 151-2, POSIX.1, ANSI C
fprintf(): AES, SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3, XPG4, FIPS 151-2, POSIX.1, ANSI C
sprintf(): AES, SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3, XPG4, FIPS 151-2, POSIX.1, ANSI C






































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