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printf(1)			 User Commands			     printf(1)

NAME
       printf - write formatted output

SYNOPSIS
       printf format [argument...]

DESCRIPTION
       The  printf  command  writes formatted operands to the standard output.
       The argument operands are formatted under control of the	 format	 oper‐
       and.

OPERANDS
       The following operands are supported:

       format	       A  string  describing  the  format  to use to write the
		       remaining operands. The format operand is used  as  the
		       format string described on the  formats(5) manual page,
		       with the following exceptions:

			 ·  A SPACE character in the  format  string,  in  any
			    context other than a flag of a conversion specifi‐
			    cation, is treated as an ordinary  character  that
			    is copied to the output.

			 ·  A  character  in the format string is treated as a
			    character, not as a SPACE character.

			 ·  In addition to the escape sequences	 described  on
			    the	  formats(5)  manual page (\\, \a, \b, \f, \n,
			    \r, \t, \v), \ddd, where ddd is a  one-,  two-  or
			    three-digit	 octal	number,	 is  written as a byte
			    with the numeric value specified by the octal num‐
			    ber.

			 ·  The program does not precede or follow output from
			    the d or u conversion  specifications  with	 blank
			    characters not specified by the format operand.

			 ·  The	 program  does	not  precede output from the o
			    conversion specification with zeros not  specified
			    by the format operand.

			 ·  An	additional  conversion	character,  b, is sup‐
			    ported as follows. The argument is taken to	 be  a
			    string    that    may   contain   backslash-escape
			    sequences.	  The	 following    backslash-escape
			    sequences are supported:

			      ·	 the  escape  sequences	 listed	 on  the  for‐
				 mats(5) manual page (\\, \a, \b, \f, \n,  \r,
				 \t,  \v),  which are converted to the charac‐
				 ters they represent

			      ·	 \0ddd, where ddd is a zero-,  one-,  two-  or
				 three-digit octal number that is converted to
				 a byte with the numeric  value	 specified  by
				 the octal number

			      ·	 \c,  which  is	 written  and causes printf to
				 ignore any remaining characters in the string
				 operand  containing  it, any remaining string
				 operands and any additional characters in the
				 format operand.

		       The interpretation of a backslash followed by any other
		       sequence of characters is unspecified.

		       Bytes from the converted string are written  until  the
		       end  of	the string or the number of bytes indicated by
		       the precision specification is reached. If  the	preci‐
		       sion  is	 omitted,  it  is taken to be infinite, so all
		       bytes up to the end of the converted string  are	 writ‐
		       ten.  For each specification that consumes an argument,
		       the next argument operand is evaluated and converted to
		       the  appropriate	 type  for the conversion as specified
		       below. The format operand is reused as often as	neces‐
		       sary to satisfy the argument operands. Any extra c or s
		       conversion specifications are evaluated as  if  a  null
		       string  argument	 were supplied; other extra conversion
		       specifications are evaluated as if a zero argument were
		       supplied.  If the format operand contains no conversion
		       specifications and argument operands are	 present,  the
		       results are unspecified. If a character sequence in the
		       format operand begins with a % character, but does  not
		       form  a valid conversion specification, the behavior is
		       unspecified.

       argument	       The strings to be written to standard output, under the
		       control of format. The argument operands are treated as
		       strings if the corresponding conversion character is b,
		       c  or s. Otherwise, it is evaluated as a C constant, as
		       described by the ISO C  standard,  with	the  following
		       extensions:

			 ·  A leading plus or minus sign is allowed.

			 ·  If	the  leading character is a single- or double-
			    quote, the value  is  the  numeric	value  in  the
			    underlying	codeset of the character following the
			    single- or double-quote.

		       If an argument operand cannot be	 completely  converted
		       into an internal value appropriate to the corresponding
		       conversion specification, a diagnostic message is writ‐
		       ten  to	standard  error	 and the utility does not exit
		       with a zero exit status, but continues  processing  any
		       remaining  operands and writes the value accumulated at
		       the time the error was detected to standard output.

USAGE
       Notice that this printf utility, like the printf(3C) function on	 which
       it  is  based,  makes  no special provision for dealing with multi-byte
       characters when using the %c conversion specification or when a	preci‐
       sion  is specified in a %b or %s conversion specification. Applications
       should be extremely cautious using either of these features when	 there
       are multi-byte characters in the character set.

       Field widths and precisions cannot be specified as *.

       For  compatibility  with	 previous  versions of SunOS 5.x, the $ format
       specifier is supported for formats containing only %s specifiers.

       The %b conversion specification is not part of the ISO C	 standard;  it
       has  been  added	 here  as  a portable way to process backslash escapes
       expanded in string operands as provided by the echo utility.  See  also
       the  USAGE section of the echo(1) manual page for ways to use printf as
       a replacement for all of the traditional versions of the echo utility.

       If an argument cannot be parsed correctly for the corresponding conver‐
       sion specification, the printf utility reports an error. Thus, overflow
       and extraneous characters at the end of an argument being  used	for  a
       numeric conversion are to be reported as errors.

       It  is not considered an error if an argument operand is not completely
       used for a c or s conversion or if a string operand's first  or	second
       character is used to get the numeric value of a character.

EXAMPLES
       Example 1: Printing a series of prompts

       To alert the user and then print and read a series of prompts:

       example% printf "\aPlease fill in the following: \nName: "
       read name
       printf "Phone number: "
       read phone

       Example 2: Printing a table of calculations

       To  read	 out  a list of right and wrong answers from a file, calculate
       the percentage correctly, and print them out. The  numbers  are	right-
       justified  and  separated  by a single tab character. The percentage is
       written to one decimal place of accuracy:

       example% while read right wrong ; do
	  percent=$(echo "scale=1;($right*100)/($right+$wrong)" | bc)
	  printf "%2d right\t%2d wrong\t(%s%%)\n" \
	       $right $wrong $percent
       done < database_file

       Example 3: Printing number strings

       The command:

       example% printf "%5d%4d\n" 1 21 321 4321 54321

       produces:

	   1  21
	 3214321
       54321   0

       Notice that the format operand is used three times to print all of  the
       given  strings  and that a 0 was supplied by printf to satisfy the last
       %4d conversion specification.

       Example 4: Tabulating conversion errors

       The printf utility tells the user when conversion errors	 are  detected
       while  producing	 numeric  output; thus, the following results would be
       expected on an implementation with 32-bit twos-complement integers when
       %d is specified as the format operand:

       ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
       │  Arguments	  Standard		   Diagnostic		   │
       │5a		     5	       printf: 5a not completely converted │
       │9999999999	 2147483647    printf:	 9999999999:  Results  too │
       │			       large				   │
       │-9999999999	-2147483648    printf:	-9999999999:  Results  too │
       │			       large				   │
       │ABC		     0	       printf: ABC expected numeric value  │
       └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

       Notice  that  the  value	 shown	on  standard  output  is what would be
       expected as the return value from the function  strtol(3C).  A  similar
       correspondence exists between %u and strtoul(3C), and %e, %f and %g and
       strtod(3C).

       Example 5: Printing output for a specific locale

       In a locale using the ISO/IEC  646:1991	standard   as  the  underlying
       codeset, the command:

       example% printf "%d\n" 3 +3 -3 \'3 \"+3 "'-3"

       produces:

       ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
       │3	Numeric value of constant 3			   │
       │3	Numeric value of constant 3			   │
       │−3	Numeric value of constant −3			   │
       │51	Numeric	 value of the character `3' in the ISO/IEC │
       │	646:1991 standard codeset			   │
       │43	Numeric value of the character `+' in the  ISO/IEC │
       │	646:1991 standard codeset			   │
       │45	Numeric	 value	of the character `−' in the SO/IEC │
       │	646:1991 standard codeset			   │
       └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

       Notice that in a locale with multi-byte	characters,  the  value	 of  a
       character  is intended to be the value of the equivalent of the wchar_t
       representation of the character.

       If an argument operand cannot be completely converted into an  internal
       value  appropriate  to  the  corresponding  conversion specification, a
       diagnostic message is written to standard error and  the	 utility  does
       exit  with  a  zero exit status, but continues processing any remaining
       operands and writes the value accumulated at the	 time  the  error  was
       detected to standard output.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       See  environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
       that affect the execution of printf: LANG,  LC_ALL,  LC_CTYPE,  LC_MES‐
       SAGES, LC_NUMERIC, and NLSPATH.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values are returned:

       0	Successful completion.

       >0	An error occurred.

ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
       │      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     │	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │Availability		     │SUNWloc			   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │CSI			     │enabled			   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │Interface Stability	     │Standard			   │
       └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

SEE ALSO
       awk(1),	 bc(1),	 echo(1),  printf(3C),	strtod(3C),  strtol(3C),  str‐
       toul(3C), attributes(5), environ(5), formats(5), standards(5)

SunOS 5.10			  28 Mar 1995			     printf(1)
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