The minimum field width can be specified as a decimal-digit string following any flag specifier, in which case the field width is set to the specified number of columns. The field width can also be specified as asterisk (*) in which case an additional argument of type int is accessed to determine the field width.

For example, to print an integer x in a field width determined by the value of the int variable w, you would write the following D statement:

printf("%*d", w, x);

The field width can also be specified with a ? character to indicate that the field width should be set based on the number of characters required to format an address (in hexadecimal) in the data model of the operating system kernel. The width is set to 8, if the kernel is using the 32-bit data model, or to 16, if the kernel is using the 64-bit data model. The precision for the conversion can be specified as a decimal digit string following a period (.), or by an asterisk (*) following a period. If an asterisk is used to specify the precision, an additional argument of type int before the conversion argument provides the precision. If both width and precision are specified as asterisks, the order of arguments to printf for the conversion should appear in the following order: width, precision, value.