PRINTF

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: December 2009
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NAME

printf - format and print data  

SYNOPSIS

printf FORMAT [ARGUMENT]...
printf OPTION  

DESCRIPTION

Print ARGUMENT(s) according to FORMAT, or execute according to OPTION:

--help
display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit

FORMAT controls the output as in C printf. Interpreted sequences are:

\"
double quote
\NNN
character with octal value NNN (1 to 3 digits)
\\
backslash
\a
alert (BEL)
\b
backspace
\c
produce no further output
\f
form feed
\n
new line
\r
carriage return
\t
horizontal tab
\v
vertical tab
\xHH
byte with hexadecimal value HH (1 to 2 digits)
\uHHHH
Unicode (ISO/IEC 10646) character with hex value HHHH (4 digits)
\UHHHHHHHH
Unicode character with hex value HHHHHHHH (8 digits)
%%
a single %
%b
ARGUMENT as a string with `\' escapes interpreted, except that octal escapes are of the form \0 or \0NNN

and all C format specifications ending with one of diouxXfeEgGcs, with ARGUMENTs converted to proper type first. Variable widths are handled.

NOTE: your shell may have its own version of printf, which usually supersedes the version described here. Please refer to your shell's documentation for details about the options it supports.  

AUTHOR

Written by David MacKenzie.  

REPORTING BUGS

Report printf bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>  

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  

SEE ALSO

printf(3)

The full documentation for printf is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and printf programs are properly installed at your site, the command

info coreutils aqprintf invocationaq

should give you access to the complete manual.