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       This  manual  page  is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux implementation of
       this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux  manual  page  for  details  of
       Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME

       printf — write formatted output

SYNOPSIS

       printf format [argument...]

DESCRIPTION

       The  printf  utility  shall  write formatted operands to the standard output. The argument
       operands shall be formatted under control of the format operand.

OPTIONS

       None.

OPERANDS

       The following operands shall be supported:

       format    A string describing the format to use to write the remaining operands.  See  the
                 EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.

       argument  The  strings to be written to standard output, under the control of format.  See
                 the EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.

STDIN

       Not used.

INPUT FILES

       None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of printf:

       LANG      Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or
                 null.   (See   the   Base  Definitions  volume  of  POSIX.1‐2008,  Section  8.2,
                 Internationalization Variables the precedence of internationalization  variables
                 used to determine the values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL    If  set  to  a  non-empty  string  value,  override  the values of all the other
                 internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE  Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of  text  data
                 as  characters  (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in
                 arguments).

       LC_MESSAGES
                 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format  and  contents  of
                 diagnostic messages written to standard error.

       LC_NUMERIC
                 Determine  the  locale  for  numeric  formatting.  It shall affect the format of
                 numbers written using the e, E, f, g, and G conversion specifier characters  (if
                 supported).

       NLSPATH   Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

       Default.

STDOUT

       See the EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.

STDERR

       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

       The  format  operand  shall be used as the format string described in the Base Definitions
       volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 5, File Format Notation with the following exceptions:

        1. A <space> in the format string, in any context other  than  a  flag  of  a  conversion
           specification, shall be treated as an ordinary character that is copied to the output.

        2. A  ''  character  in  the  format  string shall be treated as a '' character, not as a
           <space>.

        3. In addition  to  the  escape  sequences  shown  in  the  Base  Definitions  volume  of
           POSIX.1‐2008,  Chapter  5,  File  Format Notation ('\\', '\a', '\b', '\f', '\n', '\r',
           '\t', '\v'), "\ddd", where ddd is a one, two, or three-digit octal  number,  shall  be
           written as a byte with the numeric value specified by the octal number.

        4. The  implementation  shall  not  precede  or  follow output from the d or u conversion
           specifiers with <blank> characters not specified by the format operand.

        5. The implementation shall not precede output from the o conversion specifier with zeros
           not specified by the format operand.

        6. The a, A, e, E, f, F, g, and G conversion specifiers need not be supported.

        7. An  additional  conversion  specifier character, b, shall be supported as follows. The
           argument shall be taken to be a string that may contain <backslash>-escape  sequences.
           The following <backslash>-escape sequences shall be supported:

           --  The  escape  sequences  listed  in  the  Base  Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008,
               Chapter 5, File Format Notation ('\\', '\a', '\b', '\f', '\n', '\r', '\t',  '\v'),
               which shall be converted to the characters they represent

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

           --  '\c', which shall not be written and shall cause 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 shall be written until the end of the string or the
           number of bytes indicated by the precision specification is reached. If the  precision
           is  omitted,  it  shall  be  taken  to  be infinite, so all bytes up to the end of the
           converted string shall be written.

        8. For each conversion specification that consumes an argument, the next argument operand
           shall  be  evaluated  and  converted  to  the  appropriate  type for the conversion as
           specified below.

        9. The format operand shall be reused as often  as  necessary  to  satisfy  the  argument
           operands.  Any  extra  c  or  s  conversion specifiers shall be evaluated as if a null
           string  argument  were  supplied;  other  extra  conversion  specifications  shall  be
           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.

       10. If  a  character  sequence in the format operand begins with a '%' character, but does
           not form a valid conversion specification, the behavior is unspecified.

       11. The argument to the c conversion specifier can be a string  containing  zero  or  more
           bytes.  If  it  contains  one  or  more bytes, the first byte shall be written and any
           additional bytes shall be  ignored.  If  the  argument  is  an  empty  string,  it  is
           unspecified whether nothing is written or a null byte is written.

       The  argument  operands  shall  be  treated  as  strings  if  the corresponding conversion
       specifier is b, c, or s, and shall be evaluated as if by  the  strtod()  function  if  the
       corresponding conversion specifier is a, A, e, E, f, F, g, or G.  Otherwise, they shall be
       evaluated as unsuffixed C integer constants, as described by the ISO C standard, with  the
       following extensions:

        *  A leading <plus-sign> or minus-sign shall be allowed.

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

        *  Suffixed integer constants may be allowed.

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

       It  is  not considered an error if an argument operand is not completely used for a c or s
       conversion.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0    Successful completion.

       >0    An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

       The floating-point formatting conversion  specifications  of  printf()  are  not  required
       because  all  arithmetic  in  the  shell  is  integer arithmetic. The awk utility performs
       floating-point calculations and provides its own  printf  function.  The  bc  utility  can
       perform  arbitrary-precision  floating-point  arithmetic,  but  does not provide extensive
       formatting capabilities. (This printf utility cannot really be used to format  bc  output;
       it  does  not  support arbitrary precision.) Implementations are encouraged to support the
       floating-point conversions as an extension.

       Note that this printf utility, like the printf() function defined in the System Interfaces
       volume  of  POSIX.1‐2008 on which it is based, makes no special provision for dealing with
       multi-byte characters when using the %c conversion specification or when  a  precision  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.

       No  provision  is  made  in  this  volume  of  POSIX.1‐2008  which allows field widths and
       precisions to be specified as '*' since the '*' can be replaced  directly  in  the  format
       operand  using  shell variable substitution. Implementations can also provide this feature
       as an extension if they so choose.

       Hexadecimal character constants as defined in the ISO C standard are not recognized in the
       format operand because there is no consistent way to detect the end of the constant. Octal
       character constants are limited to, at most, three octal digits, but hexadecimal character
       constants  are  only  terminated  by a non-hex-digit character. In the ISO C standard, the
       "##" concatenation operator can be used to terminate a  constant  and  follow  it  with  a
       hexadecimal  character to be written. In the shell, concatenation occurs before the printf
       utility has a chance to parse the end of the hexadecimal constant.

       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 APPLICATION USAGE section of echo 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 conversion specification,
       the printf utility  is  required  to  report  an  error.  Thus,  overflow  and  extraneous
       characters at the end of an argument being used for a numeric conversion shall be reported
       as errors.

EXAMPLES

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

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

       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>.  The percentage is written to one decimal place of accuracy:

           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

       The command:

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

       produces:

               1  21
             3214321
           54321   0

       Note 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.

       The  printf  utility  is  required  to notify 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:

                ┌────────────┬─────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────┐
                │            │  Standard   │                                           │
                │ ArgumentOutputDiagnostic Output             │
                ├────────────┼─────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
                │5a          │ 5           │ printf: "5a" not completely converted     │
                │9999999999  │ 2147483647  │ printf: "9999999999" arithmetic overflow  │
                │−9999999999 │ −2147483648 │ printf: "−9999999999" arithmetic overflow │
                │ABC         │ 0           │ printf: "ABC" expected numeric value      │
                └────────────┴─────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────┘
       The diagnostic message format is not specified, but these  examples  convey  the  type  of
       information  that should be reported. Note that the value shown on standard output is what
       would be expected as the return value from the strtol() function as defined in the  System
       Interfaces  volume  of  POSIX.1‐2008.  A  similar  correspondence  exists  between  %u and
       strtoul() and %e, %f, and %g (if the implementation supports  floating-point  conversions)
       and strtod().

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

           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 ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard codeset

       Note  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 as described
       in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2008.

RATIONALE

       The  printf utility was added to provide functionality that has historically been provided
       by echo.  However, due to irreconcilable differences  in  the  various  versions  of  echo
       extant,  the  version  has few special features, leaving those to this new printf utility,
       which is based on one in the Ninth Edition system.

       The EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section almost exactly matches the printf() function in the ISO C
       standard,  although  it  is  described  in  terms  of the file format notation in the Base
       Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 5, File Format Notation.

       Earlier versions of this standard specified that arguments for all conversions other  than
       b,  c,  and s were evaluated in the same way (as C constants, but with stated exceptions).
       For implementations supporting the floating-point conversions it  was  not  clear  whether
       integer conversions need only accept integer constants and floating-point conversions need
       only accept floating-point constants, or whether both types of conversions  should  accept
       both types of constants. Also by not distinguishing between them, the requirement relating
       to a leading single-quote or  double-quote  applied  to  floating-point  conversions  even
       though  this  provided  no  useful  functionality  to  applications  that  was not already
       available through the integer conversions. The current standard clarifies the situation by
       specifying  that  the  arguments  for  floating-point  conversions  are evaluated as if by
       strtod(), and the arguments for integer conversions are evaluated as C integer  constants,
       with  the  special  treatment  of  leading  single-quote and double-quote applying only to
       integer conversions.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       awk, bc, echo

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 5, File Format Notation,  Chapter  8,
       Environment Variables

       The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2008, fprintf(), strtod()

COPYRIGHT

       Portions  of  this  text  are  reprinted  and  reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std
       1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology  --  Portable  Operating  System
       Interface  (POSIX),  The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the
       Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc  and  The  Open  Group.   (This  is
       POSIX.1-2008  with  the  2013  Technical  Corrigendum  1  applied.)  In  the  event of any
       discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open  Group  Standard,  the
       original  IEEE  and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard
       can be obtained online at http://www.unix.org/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most  likely  to  have
       been  introduced  during  the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report
       such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .