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  13 .TH PRINTF 1 "Aug 11, 2009"
  14 .SH NAME
  15 printf \- write formatted output
  16 .SH SYNOPSIS
  17 .SS "/usr/bin/printf"
  18 .LP
  19 .nf
  20 \fBprintf\fR \fIformat\fR [\fIargument\fR]...
  21 .fi
  22 
  23 .SS "ksh93"
  24 .LP
  25 .nf
  26 \fBprintf\fR \fIformat\fR [\fIstring\fR...]
  27 .fi
  28 
  29 .SH DESCRIPTION
  30 .SS "/usr/bin/printf"
  31 .sp
  32 .LP
  33 The \fBprintf\fR utility writes each string operand to standard output using
  34 \fIformat\fR to control the output format.
  35 .SH OPERANDS
  36 .SS "/usr/bin/printf"
  37 .sp
  38 .LP
  39 The following operands are supported by \fB/usr/bin/printf\fR:
  40 .sp
  41 .ne 2
  42 .na
  43 \fB\fIformat\fR\fR
  44 .ad
  45 .RS 12n
  46 A string describing the format to use to write the remaining operands. The
  47 \fIformat\fR operand is used as the \fIformat\fR string described on the
  48 \fBformats\fR(5) manual page, with the following exceptions:
  49 .RS +4
  50 .TP
  51 .ie t \(bu
  52 .el o
  53 A \fBSPACE\fR character in the format string, in any context other than a flag
  54 of a conversion specification, is treated as an ordinary character that is
  55 copied to the output.
  56 .RE
  57 .RS +4
  58 .TP
  59 .ie t \(bu
  60 .el o
  61 A character in the format string is treated as a character, not as a
  62 \fBSPACE\fR character.
  63 .RE
  64 .RS +4
  65 .TP
  66 .ie t \(bu
  67 .el o
  68 In addition to the escape sequences described on the \fBformats\fR(5) manual
  69 page (\fB\e\e\fR, \fB\ea\fR, \fB\eb\fR, \fB\ef\fR, \fB\en\fR, \fB\er\fR,
  70 \fB\et\fR, \fB\ev\fR), \fB\e\fR\fIddd\fR, where \fIddd\fR is a one-, two- or
  71 three-digit octal number, is written as a byte with the numeric value specified
  72 by the octal number.
  73 .RE
  74 .RS +4
  75 .TP
  76 .ie t \(bu
  77 .el o
  78 The program does not precede or follow output from the \fBd\fR or \fBu\fR
  79 conversion specifications with blank characters not specified by the
  80 \fIformat\fR operand.
  81 .RE
  82 .RS +4
  83 .TP
  84 .ie t \(bu
  85 .el o
  86 The program does not precede output from the \fBo\fR conversion specification
  87 with zeros not specified by the \fIformat\fR operand.
  88 .RE
  89 .RS +4
  90 .TP
  91 .ie t \(bu
  92 .el o
  93 An additional conversion character, \fBb\fR, is supported as follows. The
  94 argument is taken to be a string that can contain backslash-escape sequences.
  95 The following backslash-escape sequences are supported:
  96 .RS +4
  97 .TP
  98 .ie t \(bu
  99 .el o
 100 the escape sequences listed on the \fBformats\fR(5) manual page (\fB\e\e\fR,
 101 \fB\ea\fR, \fB\eb\fR, \fB\ef\fR, \fB\en\fR, \fB\er\fR, \fB\et\fR, \fB\ev\fR),
 102 which are converted to the characters they represent
 103 .RE
 104 .RS +4
 105 .TP
 106 .ie t \(bu
 107 .el o
 108 \fB\e0\fR\fIddd\fR, where \fIddd\fR is a zero-, one-, two- or three-digit octal
 109 number that is converted to a byte with the numeric value specified by the
 110 octal number
 111 .RE
 112 .RS +4
 113 .TP
 114 .ie t \(bu
 115 .el o
 116 \fB\ec\fR, which is written and causes \fBprintf\fR to ignore any remaining
 117 characters in the string operand containing it, any remaining string operands
 118 and any additional characters in the \fIformat\fR operand.
 119 .RE
 120 .RE
 121 The interpretation of a backslash followed by any other sequence of characters
 122 is unspecified.
 123 .sp
 124 Bytes from the converted string are written until the end of the string or the
 125 number of bytes indicated by the precision specification is reached. If the
 126 precision is omitted, it is taken to be infinite, so all bytes up to the end of
 127 the converted string are written. For each specification that consumes an
 128 argument, the next argument operand is evaluated and converted to the
 129 appropriate type for the conversion as specified below. The \fIformat\fR
 130 operand is reused as often as necessary to satisfy the argument operands. Any
 131 extra \fBc\fR or \fBs\fR conversion specifications are evaluated as if a null
 132 string argument were supplied; other extra conversion specifications are
 133 evaluated as if a zero argument were supplied. If the \fIformat\fR operand
 134 contains no conversion specifications and \fIargument\fR operands are present,
 135 the results are unspecified. If a character sequence in the \fIformat\fR
 136 operand begins with a \fB%\fR character, but does not form a valid conversion
 137 specification, the behavior is unspecified.
 138 .RE
 139 
 140 .sp
 141 .ne 2
 142 .na
 143 \fB\fIargument\fR\fR
 144 .ad
 145 .RS 12n
 146 The strings to be written to standard output, under the control of
 147 \fBformat\fR. The \fIargument\fR operands are treated as strings if the
 148 corresponding conversion character is \fBb\fR, \fBc\fR or \fBs\fR. Otherwise,
 149 it is evaluated as a C constant, as described by the ISO C standard, with the
 150 following extensions:
 151 .RS +4
 152 .TP
 153 .ie t \(bu
 154 .el o
 155 A leading plus or minus sign is allowed.
 156 .RE
 157 .RS +4
 158 .TP
 159 .ie t \(bu
 160 .el o
 161 If the leading character is a single- or double-quote, the value is the numeric
 162 value in the underlying codeset of the character following the single- or
 163 double-quote.
 164 .RE
 165 If an argument operand cannot be completely converted into an internal value
 166 appropriate to the corresponding conversion specification, a diagnostic message
 167 is written to standard error and the utility does not exit with a zero exit
 168 status, but continues processing any remaining operands and writes the value
 169 accumulated at the time the error was detected to standard output.
 170 .RE
 171 
 172 .SS "ksh93"
 173 .sp
 174 .LP
 175 The \fIformat\fR operands support the full range of ANSI C/C99/XPG6 formatting
 176 specifiers as well as additional specifiers:
 177 .sp
 178 .ne 2
 179 .na
 180 \fB\fB%b\fR\fR
 181 .ad
 182 .RS 6n
 183 Each character in the string operand is processed specially, as follows:
 184 .sp
 185 .ne 2
 186 .na
 187 \fB\fB\ea\fR\fR
 188 .ad
 189 .RS 8n
 190 Alert character.
 191 .RE
 192 
 193 .sp
 194 .ne 2
 195 .na
 196 \fB\fB\eb\fR\fR
 197 .ad
 198 .RS 8n
 199 Backspace character.
 200 .RE
 201 
 202 .sp
 203 .ne 2
 204 .na
 205 \fB\fB\ec\fR\fR
 206 .ad
 207 .RS 8n
 208 Terminate output without appending NEWLINE. The remaining string operands are
 209 ignored.
 210 .RE
 211 
 212 .sp
 213 .ne 2
 214 .na
 215 \fB\fB\eE\fR\fR
 216 .ad
 217 .RS 8n
 218 Escape character (\fBASCII\fR octal \fB033\fR).
 219 .RE
 220 
 221 .sp
 222 .ne 2
 223 .na
 224 \fB\fB\ef\fR\fR
 225 .ad
 226 .RS 8n
 227 FORM FEED character.
 228 .RE
 229 
 230 .sp
 231 .ne 2
 232 .na
 233 \fB\fB\en\fR\fR
 234 .ad
 235 .RS 8n
 236 NEWLINE character.
 237 .RE
 238 
 239 .sp
 240 .ne 2
 241 .na
 242 \fB\fB\et\fR\fR
 243 .ad
 244 .RS 8n
 245 TAB character.
 246 .RE
 247 
 248 .sp
 249 .ne 2
 250 .na
 251 \fB\fB\ev\fR\fR
 252 .ad
 253 .RS 8n
 254 Vertical tab character.
 255 .RE
 256 
 257 .sp
 258 .ne 2
 259 .na
 260 \fB\fB\e\e\fR\fR
 261 .ad
 262 .RS 8n
 263 Backslash character.
 264 .RE
 265 
 266 .sp
 267 .ne 2
 268 .na
 269 \fB\fB\e0\fR\fIx\fR\fR
 270 .ad
 271 .RS 8n
 272 The 8-bit character whose \fBASCII\fR code is the \fB1\fR-, \fB2\fR-, or
 273 \fB3\fR-digit octal number \fIx\fR.
 274 .RE
 275 
 276 .RE
 277 
 278 .sp
 279 .ne 2
 280 .na
 281 \fB\fB%B\fR\fR
 282 .ad
 283 .RS 6n
 284 Treat the argument as a variable name and output the value without converting
 285 it to a string. This is most useful for variables of type \fB-b\fR.
 286 .RE
 287 
 288 .sp
 289 .ne 2
 290 .na
 291 \fB\fB%H\fR\fR
 292 .ad
 293 .RS 6n
 294 Output string with characters \fB<\fR, \fB&\fR, \fB>\fR, \fB"\fR, and
 295 non-printable characters, properly escaped for use in HTML and XML documents.
 296 .RE
 297 
 298 .sp
 299 .ne 2
 300 .na
 301 \fB\fB%P\fR\fR
 302 .ad
 303 .RS 6n
 304 Treat \fIstring\fR as an extended regular expression and convert it to a shell
 305 pattern.
 306 .RE
 307 
 308 .sp
 309 .ne 2
 310 .na
 311 \fB\fB%q\fR\fR
 312 .ad
 313 .RS 6n
 314 Output \fIstring\fR quoted in a manner that it can be read in by the shell to
 315 get back the same string. However, empty strings resulting from missing string
 316 operands are not quoted.
 317 .RE
 318 
 319 .sp
 320 .ne 2
 321 .na
 322 \fB\fB%R\fR\fR
 323 .ad
 324 .RS 6n
 325 Treat \fIstring\fR as an shell pattern expression and convert it to an extended
 326 regular expression.
 327 .RE
 328 
 329 .sp
 330 .ne 2
 331 .na
 332 \fB\fB%T\fR\fR
 333 .ad
 334 .RS 6n
 335 Treat \fIstring\fR as a date/time string and format it. The \fBT\fR can be
 336 preceded by (\fIdformat\fR), where \fIdformat\fR is a date format as defined by
 337 the \fBdate\fR(1) command.
 338 .RE
 339 
 340 .sp
 341 .ne 2
 342 .na
 343 \fB\fB%Z\fR\fR
 344 .ad
 345 .RS 6n
 346 Output a byte whose value is \fB0\fR.
 347 .RE
 348 
 349 .sp
 350 .LP
 351 When performing conversions of \fIstring\fR to satisfy a numeric format
 352 specifier, if the first character of \fIstring\fR is \fB"or'\fR, the value is
 353 the numeric value in the underlying code set of the character following the
 354 \fB"or'\fR. Otherwise, \fIstring\fR is treated like a shell arithmetic
 355 expression and evaluated.
 356 .sp
 357 .LP
 358 If a \fIstring\fR operand cannot be completely converted into a value
 359 appropriate for that format specifier, an error occurs, but remaining
 360 \fIstring\fR operands continue to be processed.
 361 .sp
 362 .LP
 363 In addition to the format specifier extensions, the following extensions of
 364 ANSI C/C99/XPG6 are permitted in format specifiers:
 365 .RS +4
 366 .TP
 367 .ie t \(bu
 368 .el o
 369 The escape sequences \fB\eE\fR and \fB\ee\fR expand to the escape character
 370 which is octal 033 in ASCII.
 371 .RE
 372 .RS +4
 373 .TP
 374 .ie t \(bu
 375 .el o
 376 The escape sequence \fB\ecx\fR expands to CTRL-x.
 377 .RE
 378 .RS +4
 379 .TP
 380 .ie t \(bu
 381 .el o
 382 The escape sequence \fB\eC[.\fR\fIname\fR\fB\&.]\fR expands to the collating
 383 element \fIname\fR.
 384 .RE
 385 .RS +4
 386 .TP
 387 .ie t \(bu
 388 .el o
 389 The escape sequence \fB\ex{hex}\fRexpands to the character corresponding to the
 390 hexadecimal value \fBhex\fR.
 391 .RE
 392 .RS +4
 393 .TP
 394 .ie t \(bu
 395 .el o
 396 The format modifier flag = can be used to center a field to a specified width.
 397 When the output is a terminal, the character width is used rather than the
 398 number of bytes.
 399 .RE
 400 .RS +4
 401 .TP
 402 .ie t \(bu
 403 .el o
 404 Each of the integral format specifiers can have a third modifier after width
 405 and precision that specifies the base of the conversion from 2 to 64. In this
 406 case, the \fB#\fR modifier causes \fIbase\fR\fB#\fR to be prepended to the
 407 value.
 408 .RE
 409 .RS +4
 410 .TP
 411 .ie t \(bu
 412 .el o
 413 The \fB#\fR modifier can be used with the \fBd\fR specifier when no base is
 414 specified to cause the output to be written in units of 1000 with a suffix of
 415 one of \fBk M G T P E\fR.
 416 .RE
 417 .RS +4
 418 .TP
 419 .ie t \(bu
 420 .el o
 421 The \fB#\fR modifier can be used with the \fBi\fR specifier to cause the output
 422 to be written in units of \fB1024\fR with a suffix of one of \fBKi Mi Gi Ti Pi
 423 Ei\fR.
 424 .RE
 425 .sp
 426 .LP
 427 If there are more \fIstring\fR operands than format specifiers, the format
 428 string is reprocessed from the beginning. If there are fewer \fIstring\fR
 429 operands than format specifiers, then \fIstring\fR specifiers are treated as if
 430 empty strings were supplied, numeric conversions are treated as if \fB0\fR was
 431 supplied, and time conversions are treated as if \fBnow\fR was supplied.
 432 .sp
 433 .LP
 434 \fB/usr/bin/printf\fR is equivalent to \fBksh93\fR's \fBprintf\fR built-in and
 435 \fBprint -f\fR, which allows additional options to be specified.
 436 .SH USAGE
 437 .SS "/usr/bin/printf"
 438 .sp
 439 .LP
 440 The \fBprintf\fR utility, like the \fBprintf\fR(3C) function on which it is
 441 based, makes no special provision for dealing with multi-byte characters when
 442 using the \fB%c\fR conversion specification. Applications should be extremely
 443 cautious using either of these features when there are multi-byte characters in
 444 the character set.
 445 .sp
 446 .LP
 447 Field widths and precisions cannot be specified as \fB*\fR.
 448 .sp
 449 .LP
 450 The \fB%b\fR conversion specification is not part of the ISO C standard; it has
 451 been added here as a portable way to process backslash escapes expanded in
 452 string operands as provided by the \fBecho\fR utility. See also the USAGE
 453 section of the \fBecho\fR(1) manual page for ways to use \fBprintf\fR as a
 454 replacement for all of the traditional versions of the \fBecho\fR utility.
 455 .sp
 456 .LP
 457 If an argument cannot be parsed correctly for the corresponding conversion
 458 specification, the \fBprintf\fR utility reports an error. Thus, overflow and
 459 extraneous characters at the end of an argument being used for a numeric
 460 conversion are to be reported as errors.
 461 .sp
 462 .LP
 463 It is not considered an error if an argument operand is not completely used for
 464 a \fBc\fR or \fBs\fR conversion or if a string operand's first or second
 465 character is used to get the numeric value of a character.
 466 .SH EXAMPLES
 467 .SS "/usr/bin/printf"
 468 .LP
 469 \fBExample 1 \fRPrinting a Series of Prompts
 470 .sp
 471 .LP
 472 The following example alerts the user, then prints and reads a series of
 473 prompts:
 474 
 475 .sp
 476 .in +2
 477 .nf
 478 example% \fBprintf "\eaPlease fill in the following: \enName: "
 479 read name
 480 printf "Phone number: "
 481 read phone\fR
 482 .fi
 483 .in -2
 484 .sp
 485 
 486 .LP
 487 \fBExample 2 \fRPrinting a Table of Calculations
 488 .sp
 489 .LP
 490 The following example prints a table of calculations. It reads out a list of
 491 right and wrong answers from a file, calculates the percentage correctly, and
 492 prints them out. The numbers are right-justified and separated by a single tab
 493 character. The percentage is written to one decimal place of accuracy:
 494 
 495 .sp
 496 .in +2
 497 .nf
 498 example% \fBwhile read right wrong ; do
 499    percent=$(echo "scale=1;($right*100)/($right+$wrong)" | bc)
 500    printf "%2d right\et%2d wrong\et(%s%%)\en" \e
 501            $right $wrong $percent
 502 done < database_file\fR
 503 .fi
 504 .in -2
 505 .sp
 506 
 507 .LP
 508 \fBExample 3 \fRPrinting number strings
 509 .sp
 510 .LP
 511 The command:
 512 
 513 .sp
 514 .in +2
 515 .nf
 516 example% \fBprintf "%5d%4d\en" 1 21 321 4321 54321\fR
 517 .fi
 518 .in -2
 519 .sp
 520 
 521 .sp
 522 .LP
 523 produces:
 524 
 525 .sp
 526 .in +2
 527 .nf
 528     1  21
 529   3214321
 530 54321   0
 531 .fi
 532 .in -2
 533 .sp
 534 
 535 .sp
 536 .LP
 537 The \fIformat\fR operand is used three times to print all of the given strings
 538 and that a \fB0\fR was supplied by \fBprintf\fR to satisfy the last \fB%4d\fR
 539 conversion specification.
 540 
 541 .LP
 542 \fBExample 4 \fRTabulating Conversion Errors
 543 .sp
 544 .LP
 545 The following example tabulates conversion errors.
 546 
 547 .sp
 548 .LP
 549 The \fBprintf\fR utility tells the user when conversion errors are detected
 550 while producing numeric output. These results would be expected on an
 551 implementation with 32-bit twos-complement integers when \fB%d\fR is specified
 552 as the \fIformat\fR operand:
 553 
 554 .sp
 555 
 556 .sp
 557 .TS
 558 box;
 559 c c c
 560 l l l .
 561 Arguments       Standard        Diagnostic
 562 5a      5       printf: 5a not completely converted
 563 9999999999      2147483647      printf: 9999999999: Results too large
 564 -9999999999     -2147483648     printf: -9999999999: Results too large
 565 ABC     0       printf: ABC expected numeric value
 566 .TE
 567 
 568 .sp
 569 .LP
 570 The value shown on standard output is what would be expected as the return
 571 value from the function \fBstrtol\fR(3C). A similar correspondence exists
 572 between \fB%u\fR and \fBstrtoul\fR(3C), and \fB%e\fR, \fB%f\fR and \fB%g\fR and
 573 \fBstrtod\fR(3C).
 574 
 575 .LP
 576 \fBExample 5 \fRPrinting Output for a Specific Locale
 577 .sp
 578 .LP
 579 The following example prints output for a specific locale. In a locale using
 580 the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard as the underlying codeset, the command:
 581 
 582 .sp
 583 .in +2
 584 .nf
 585 example% \fBprintf "%d\en" 3 +3 -3 \e'3 \e"+3 "'-3"\fR
 586 .fi
 587 .in -2
 588 .sp
 589 
 590 .sp
 591 .LP
 592 produces:
 593 
 594 .sp
 595 
 596 .sp
 597 .TS
 598 box;
 599 l l
 600 l l .
 601 \fB3\fR Numeric value of constant 3
 602 \fB3\fR Numeric value of constant 3
 603 \fB\(mi3\fR     Numeric value of constant \(mi3
 604 \fB51\fR        T{
 605 Numeric value of the character `3' in the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard codeset
 606 T}
 607 \fB43\fR        T{
 608 Numeric value of the character `+' in the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard codeset
 609 T}
 610 \fB45\fR        T{
 611 Numeric value of the character `\(mi' in the SO/IEC 646:1991 standard codeset
 612 T}
 613 .TE
 614 
 615 .sp
 616 .LP
 617 In a locale with multi-byte characters, the value of a character is intended to
 618 be the value of the equivalent of the \fBwchar_t\fR representation of the
 619 character.
 620 
 621 .sp
 622 .LP
 623 If an argument operand cannot be completely converted into an internal value
 624 appropriate to the corresponding conversion specification, a diagnostic message
 625 is written to standard error and the utility does exit with a zero exit status,
 626 but continues processing any remaining operands and writes the value
 627 accumulated at the time the error was detected to standard output.
 628 
 629 .LP
 630 \fBExample 6 \fRAlternative floating point representation 1
 631 .sp
 632 .LP
 633 The \fBprintf\fR utility supports an alternative floating point representation
 634 (see \fBprintf\fR(3C) entry for the "\fB%a\fR"/"\fB%A\fR"), which allows the
 635 output of floating-point values in a format that avoids the usual base16 to
 636 base10 rounding errors.
 637 
 638 .sp
 639 .in +2
 640 .nf
 641 example% printf "%a\n" 2 3.1 NaN
 642 .fi
 643 .in -2
 644 .sp
 645 
 646 .sp
 647 .LP
 648 produces:
 649 
 650 .sp
 651 .in +2
 652 .nf
 653 0x1.0000000000000000000000000000p+01
 654 0x1.8ccccccccccccccccccccccccccdp+01
 655 nan
 656 .fi
 657 .in -2
 658 .sp
 659 
 660 .LP
 661 \fBExample 7 \fRAlternative floating point representation 2
 662 .sp
 663 .LP
 664 The following example shows two different representations of the same
 665 floating-point value.
 666 
 667 .sp
 668 .in +2
 669 .nf
 670 example% x=2 ; printf "%f == %a\n" x x
 671 .fi
 672 .in -2
 673 .sp
 674 
 675 .sp
 676 .LP
 677 produces:
 678 
 679 .sp
 680 .in +2
 681 .nf
 682 2.000000 == 0x1.0000000000000000000000000000p+01
 683 .fi
 684 .in -2
 685 .sp
 686 
 687 .LP
 688 \fBExample 8 \fROutput of unicode values
 689 .sp
 690 .LP
 691 The following command will print the EURO unicode symbol (code-point 0x20ac).
 692 
 693 .sp
 694 .in +2
 695 .nf
 696 example% LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 printf "\u[20ac]\n"
 697 .fi
 698 .in -2
 699 .sp
 700 
 701 .sp
 702 .LP
 703 produces:
 704 
 705 .sp
 706 .in +2
 707 .nf
 708 <euro>
 709 .fi
 710 .in -2
 711 .sp
 712 
 713 .sp
 714 .LP
 715 where "<euro>" represents the EURO currency symbol character.
 716 
 717 .LP
 718 \fBExample 9 \fRConvert unicode character to unicode code-point value
 719 .sp
 720 .LP
 721 The following command will print the hexadecimal value of a given character.
 722 
 723 .sp
 724 .in +2
 725 .nf
 726 example% export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
 727 example% printf "%x\n" "'<euro>"
 728 .fi
 729 .in -2
 730 .sp
 731 
 732 .sp
 733 .LP
 734 where "<euro>" represents the EURO currency symbol character (code-point
 735 0x20ac).
 736 
 737 .sp
 738 .LP
 739 produces:
 740 
 741 .sp
 742 .in +2
 743 .nf
 744 20ac
 745 .fi
 746 .in -2
 747 .sp
 748 
 749 .LP
 750 \fBExample 10 \fRPrint the numeric value of an ASCII character
 751 .sp
 752 .in +2
 753 .nf
 754 example% printf "%d\n" "'A"
 755 .fi
 756 .in -2
 757 .sp
 758 
 759 .sp
 760 .LP
 761 produces:
 762 
 763 .sp
 764 .in +2
 765 .nf
 766 65
 767 .fi
 768 .in -2
 769 .sp
 770 
 771 .LP
 772 \fBExample 11 \fRPrint the language-independent date and time format
 773 .sp
 774 .LP
 775 To print the language-independent date and time format, the following statement
 776 could be used:
 777 
 778 .sp
 779 .in +2
 780 .nf
 781 example% printf "format" weekday month day hour min
 782 .fi
 783 .in -2
 784 .sp
 785 
 786 .sp
 787 .LP
 788 For example,
 789 
 790 .sp
 791 .in +2
 792 .nf
 793 $ printf format "Sunday" "July" 3 10 2
 794 .fi
 795 .in -2
 796 .sp
 797 
 798 .sp
 799 .LP
 800 For American usage, format could be the string:
 801 
 802 .sp
 803 .in +2
 804 .nf
 805 "%s, %s %d, %d:%.2d\n"
 806 .fi
 807 .in -2
 808 .sp
 809 
 810 .sp
 811 .LP
 812 producing the message:
 813 
 814 .sp
 815 .in +2
 816 .nf
 817 Sunday, July 3, 10:02
 818 .fi
 819 .in -2
 820 .sp
 821 
 822 .sp
 823 .LP
 824 Whereas for EU usage, format could be the string:
 825 
 826 .sp
 827 .in +2
 828 .nf
 829 "%1$s, %3$d. %2$s, %4$d:%5$.2d\n"
 830 .fi
 831 .in -2
 832 .sp
 833 
 834 .sp
 835 .LP
 836 Note that the '$' characters must be properly escaped, such as
 837 
 838 .sp
 839 .in +2
 840 .nf
 841 "%1\$s, %3\$d. %2\$s, %4\$d:%5\$.2d\n" in this case
 842 .fi
 843 .in -2
 844 .sp
 845 
 846 .sp
 847 .LP
 848 producing the message:
 849 
 850 .sp
 851 .in +2
 852 .nf
 853 Sunday, 3. July, 10:02
 854 .fi
 855 .in -2
 856 .sp
 857 
 858 .SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
 859 .sp
 860 .LP
 861 See \fBenviron\fR(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
 862 that affect the execution of \fBprintf\fR: \fBLANG\fR, \fBLC_ALL\fR,
 863 \fBLC_CTYPE\fR, \fBLC_MESSAGES\fR, \fBLC_NUMERIC\fR, and \fBNLSPATH\fR.
 864 .SH EXIT STATUS
 865 .sp
 866 .LP
 867 The following exit values are returned:
 868 .sp
 869 .ne 2
 870 .na
 871 \fB\fB0\fR\fR
 872 .ad
 873 .RS 6n
 874 Successful completion.
 875 .RE
 876 
 877 .sp
 878 .ne 2
 879 .na
 880 \fB\fB>0\fR\fR
 881 .ad
 882 .RS 6n
 883 An error occurred.
 884 .RE
 885 
 886 .SH ATTRIBUTES
 887 .sp
 888 .LP
 889 See \fBattributes\fR(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
 890 .SS "/usr/bin/printf"
 891 .sp
 892 
 893 .sp
 894 .TS
 895 box;
 896 c | c
 897 l | l .
 898 ATTRIBUTE TYPE  ATTRIBUTE VALUE
 899 _
 900 CSI     Enabled
 901 _
 902 Interface Stability     Committed
 903 _
 904 Standard        See \fBstandards\fR(5).
 905 .TE
 906 
 907 .SS "ksh93"
 908 .sp
 909 
 910 .sp
 911 .TS
 912 box;
 913 c | c
 914 l | l .
 915 ATTRIBUTE TYPE  ATTRIBUTE VALUE
 916 _
 917 Interface Stability     Uncommitted
 918 .TE
 919 
 920 .SH SEE ALSO
 921 .sp
 922 .LP
 923 \fBawk\fR(1), \fBbc\fR(1), \fBdate\fR(1), \fBecho\fR(1), \fBksh93\fR(1),
 924 \fBprintf\fR(3C), \fBstrtod\fR(3C), \fBstrtol\fR(3C), \fBstrtoul\fR(3C),
 925 \fBattributes\fR(5), \fBenviron\fR(5), \fBformats\fR(5), \fBstandards\fR(5)
 926 .SH NOTES
 927 .sp
 928 .LP
 929 Using format specifiers (characters following '%') which are not listed in the
 930 \fBprintf\fR(3C) or this manual page will result in undefined behavior.
 931 .sp
 932 .LP
 933 Using escape sequences (the character following a backslash ('\')) which are
 934 not listed in the \fBprintf\fR(3C) or this manual page will result in undefined
 935 behavior.
 936 .sp
 937 .LP
 938 Floating-point values follow C99, XPG6 and IEEE 754 standard behavior and can
 939 handle values the same way as the platform's |\fBlong double\fR| datatype.
 940 .sp
 941 .LP
 942 Floating-point values handle the sign separately which allows signs for values
 943 like NaN (for example, -nan), Infinite (for example, -inf) and zero (for
 944 example, -0.0).