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man pages section 1: User Commands

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Updated: Wednesday, July 27, 2022
 
 

printf (1g)

Name

printf - format and print data

Synopsis

printf FORMAT [ARGUMENT]...
printf OPTION

Description

PRINTF(1)                        User Commands                       PRINTF(1)



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

       \\     backslash

       \a     alert (BEL)

       \b     backspace

       \c     produce no further output

       \e     escape

       \f     form feed

       \n     new line

       \r     carriage return

       \t     horizontal tab

       \v     vertical tab

       \NNN   byte with octal value NNN (1 to 3 digits)

       \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

       %q     ARGUMENT is printed in a format that  can  be  reused  as  shell
              input, escaping non-printable characters with the proposed POSIX
              $'' syntax.

       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
       GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report    printf    translation    bugs   to   <https://translationpro-
       ject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+:  GNU
       GPL version 3 or later <https://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.


ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:


       +---------------+--------------------+
       |ATTRIBUTE TYPE |  ATTRIBUTE VALUE   |
       +---------------+--------------------+
       |Availability   | file/gnu-coreutils |
       +---------------+--------------------+
       |Stability      | Uncommitted        |
       +---------------+--------------------+

SEE ALSO
       printf(3C)

       Full documentation at: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/printf>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) printf invocation'



NOTES
       Source code for open source software components in Oracle  Solaris  can
       be found at https://www.oracle.com/downloads/opensource/solaris-source-
       code-downloads.html.

       This    software    was    built    from    source     available     at
       https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland.    The  original  community
       source  was  downloaded  from   https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/core-
       utils-8.30.tar.xz.

       Further information about this software can be found on the open source
       community website at https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils.



GNU coreutils 8.30                 July 2018                         PRINTF(1)